Historical portrait of Dante Alighieri. Dante's "Feast" - analysis
These days, the great Dante turned seven and a half centuries old. It is believed that he was baptized on May 26, and even on Wikipedia the data differs on his birthday. But the date is such that it’s not a sin to celebrate longer! Still, Dante! The author of a book that everyone knows about, but no one has read.
Fragment of a fresco from 1450. Written 130 years after Dante's death.
“The Divine Comedy”, which is actually just “Comedy”, and which no one has read, but everyone knows that it’s about hell. Alas, the fate of the titans of the Renaissance in post-post modernity is unenviable! Everyone only remembers the name. But Dante Alighieri is truly a titan! Created Italian literature and several greatest works, painted heaven and hell for all humanity. He led a political struggle for power in his native Florence, and then lived in exile for a long time. Created one of the most romantic stories love in human history. This is one of the main embodiments of the images of the Creator and the Exile in world culture. The person most often depicted as laurel wreath. Therefore, it is especially interesting to see how Dante was seen in different times. A great citizen, a visionary, a lover, a lonely exile, a symbol of the country. Moreover, Dante was painted by artists no less talented than himself. Admire what a genius looks like, whose name everyone knows seven and a half centuries after his birth! Happy anniversary, Durante!
Dante on the cover of the first edition of The Divine Comedy.
Dante on a fresco in the Carduccio Palace (1450) during the era of “monumentalization” of the image.
Portrait by Domenico de Michelino. Fresco from the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. The poet against the backdrop of his hometown, which he did not see, Hell, Purgatory and Heaven.
Canonical portrait of Sandro Botticelli
Dante in a fresco at the Palazzo Giudici
Varesi. Six Tuscan poets. Cino di Pistoia, Gvittone d'Arezzo, Cavalcante, Boccaccio, Dante and Petrarch.
Dante's death mask.
Fresco by Luca Signorelli, 1499-1502, Chapel of San Brizio
During the Enlightenment and Modern times, Dante was presented as a great but dark visionary. This is how Gustave Doré saw it when illustrating The Divine Comedy.
In the XVIII and 19th centuries artists are increasingly turning to the image of an outcast poet, misunderstood by the crowd and lonely. Antonio Cotti. Dante in Verona
Dante in exile. Frederic Leighton. 1864
Domenico Petarlini. Dante in exile. Around 1860
This passion for depicting Dante in exile is no coincidence. IN the era is coming the unification of Italy and the image of the great son of the nation, finding no shelter for himself, was relevant among Italian masters. And for the Pre-Raphaelite artists, the main thing in Dante’s image and life was his love for Beatrice.
Dante and Beatrice - John William Waterhouse
Rossetti. Beatrice, meeting Dante at the wedding feast, refuses to greet him.
Henry Holiday. Meeting of Dante and Beatrice.
Rosetti. Meeting of Dante and Beatrice in Paradise. Well, this is how he appears before the guests of Florence.
Monument to Dante in Piazza Croce, Florence.
The Renaissance perception of Dante materializes in his portrait images. Since these portraits were widely available for viewing, they, in turn, formed among the people of that era ideas about the spiritual appearance of the author of the Comedy.
Around 1450, Andrea del Castagno painted in the hall of the villa in Legnaia, near Florence, an image that should definitely be associated with a humanistic assessment of the poet’s personality. The portrait was part of a cycle of frescoes, where the theme human activity in its various aspects (portraits of Florentine writers, statesmen and military figures, outstanding women antiquity) was intertwined with religious motives. In the ideological integrity of the paintings (which is difficult to determine with precision and due to the partial loss of images), portraits of famous people - uomini famosi - acquire a specific accent of the Renaissance awareness of human dignity. Historical figures Castagno's works are marked by the qualities of reason and courage valued by the Renaissance, which are also emphasized by Bruni in his characterization of Dante. Castagno's interpretation of the image of Dante or other Florentine poets refracted the moral significance, which was then attached to humanistic pursuits, expressing their attitude towards them, for example, in the following words: “From here people usually gain honor and glory, which a wise man sets before himself as the first reward after virtue...”.
Thought about famous people as examples of human valor, it is embodied in the frescoes of Villa Legnaia using energetic pictorial and plastic means. The painting was built with a clear tectonic pattern. Large-scale figures of the subjects are presented in niches where architectural frames are imitated. The figures are significantly raised above the floor level, acquiring the character of monuments on high pedestals. The similarity is all the more obvious since plastic stress makes their volumes similar to stone. This impression is also reflected by the courageous dignity of the poses and the internal composure of the images. The figure of Dante in such an interpretation was heroized, turning into a kind of monument to him and Florentine glory.
The question of the Dante monument, of its “return” to hometown with high honors is naturally nominated with the recognition of the poet by humanists. The idea of transferring Dante's remains to Florence was discussed by the Signoria in 1396, in 1430, and later returned to it Lorenzo Medici. The famous edition of the Comedy in 1481 was regarded as a symbolic act of worship of the Florentines for Dante. A luxurious copy of the publication was presented to the Signoria. And, recalling the content of the lines of “Paradise”:
If on some day I write a sacred poem,
Marked by both heaven and earth,
…………………………………….
The anger that stopped my access will be reconciled
To my native sheepfold, where I slept as a lamb,
No favor to the wolves who disturbed her peace, -
In another rune, in another ringing greatness
I will return, poet, and crown myself with a crown
Where he was baptized as a child...(“Paradise” XXV, 1–2, 4-9)
– Marsilio Ficino wrote in the preface to this edition that the poet’s prediction about his return to his homeland and being crowned with a laurel wreath has now come true.
From the second half of the Quattrocento, the monumentalized image of Dante crowned with laurels will become widespread. This is the type of poet created in 1465 by Domenico di Michelino in a fresco of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. The fresco was conceived as a picturesque version of the monument to Dante. Its wide field (3.25 x 2.92 m) is occupied by a strict, somewhat archaic composition. It contains a detailed thought about Dante the Florentine, partly summarized in a poetic inscription by Bartolomeo della Scala. The poet is presented with a volume of "Comedy" in his hands against the backdrop of Florence, Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. The afterlife regions, of which he was a witness and creator, are implied in the fresco in their large-scale integrity. Hell is a dark abyss where those who are lost forever descend in despair. Purgatory is a mountain along whose shining steps one ascends with effort to the salvation of the soul. Paradise is shown by the lines of the celestial spheres and the signs of the planets. In accordance with the concept of the image, Dante, who created this grand world, is a poet driven by sublime love: the star of Venus shines above him. He is also a thinker who rose to the pinnacle of knowledge, which in the 15th century. connected with theology: rays emanate from the book in Dante’s hand. Finally, Dante is a glorious citizen of Florence, which is symbolized by the image of his city. This motif also has a religious subtext: in the fresco, the cross of the Cathedral - the main building of Florence - is visible in line with the Sun - a symbol of the divine. Consequently, the image of Dante - a poet, theologian, citizen - is correlated with the medieval assessment, but at the same time it is also oriented towards the Renaissance, which presupposes a combination in his personality of the features of an active and contemplative life.
It is noteworthy that in the fresco, his physiognomic expressiveness becomes essential for the interpretation of the poet’s image. Dante's portrait type is based here on the iconographic tradition. The earliest and most reliable portraits, to which the following ones go back to some extent: 1) the young poet - an image in the Bargello, attributed to Giotto’s circle; 2) the harsh image created by Taddeo Gaddi in Santa Croce; 3) mournful, praying Dante from “ Last Judgment» Nardo di Chione in Santa Maria Novella. In his iconography, Domenico di Michelino is particularly close to the type represented by Taddeo Gaddi. But the master gives the poet’s face a more complex expression - severity, bitterness and, on the other hand, thoughtfulness, even tenderness. Absorbing traditional features, such an emotional mood at the same time anticipates the idea of the poet-thinker that will come with humanism last decades Quattrocento. The peculiar “psychologism” of the image seems akin to Neoplatonic. The Platonic concept of “poet” is multifaceted: it contains thoughts about inspired creativity, triumphing over the chaos of the material, about penetration into the structure of the universe, about the restlessness of the soul, striving from the captivity of earthly appearance to spiritual contemplation.
This kind of “psychologization” portrait characteristics Dante will be studied in the art of the second half of the 15th – early 16th centuries. The masters of this time will select and emphasize those features of iconography that are capable of conveying the image of Dante the philosopher and poet: the energetic and mournful “eagle” profile. The pointed, sometimes grotesque expressiveness may have been associated with the physiognomic theory reflected in the practice of Renaissance portraiture - according to it, the resemblance to the appearance of an eagle indicated a majestic and austere spiritual nature.
In the Renaissance portrait, Dante's physiognomic properties develop into a certain intellectual and moral type of person. The crystallization of this type in its most significant monuments is as follows: a profile, sharp to the point of disharmony, in intarsia by Franchione and Giuliano da Maiano (Florence, Palazzo Vecchio, 1478), a bronze bust with the stamp of mournful concentration (Naples, Capodimonte Museum, late 15th century), a strong pathetic figure in Signorelli (Orvieto, Cathedral, Chapel of San Brizio, between 1499–1503); the image created by Raphael is the enlightened face of the poet in Parnassus and the stern face of the thinker in the Disputa (Vatican, Stanza della Segnatura, 1509–1511).
During the Quattrocento period, when the concept of Dante’s portrait comes from the high appreciation of the civilizing role of reason, knowledge, and moral efforts of man inherent in humanism, the image of the poet is introduced into the Renaissance “Pantheon” of thinkers. In the Studiolo of the Urbino Palace, a portrait of Dante could be seen in the gallery of ancient, medieval sages, poets and humanists of the 14th–15th centuries - a total of 28 semi-figured images by Justus van Ghent and other artists (1474–1475). Here “Parnassus... thoughts” was presented in the person of its greatest bearers, who acted in various fields and on different stages historical development. The cult of men of thought contained a consonance with the motives characteristic of Petrarch’s “Triumph of Glory”, Boccaccio’s “Love Vision”, and especially for Neoplatonic ideals. Italian Platonists imagined a festive spectacle of sages - people of intellectual and moral perfection, gathered for spiritual communication in the lap of nature. In their understanding, this is a kind of paradise of knowledge or temple of wisdom, which is described by Ficino. In the garden and architectural structure he places poets, orators, lawyers, philosophers and priests. Image noble assembly heroes of the spirit goes back, in fact, to Dante. In his Limbo (“Hell” IV) a beautiful symbolic landscape appears - a meadow, a hill and a castle with seven walls, seven entrances according to the number of virtues or stages of comprehension of truth. Here, in an atmosphere of calm grandeur, a family of ancient thinkers appears. Pantheon of Glory of Florentine Humanists last third the Quattrocento will include scientists of all times, primarily thinkers of the Platonic type, as Dante was perceived by them. The idea of people of knowledge and creativity as a particularly honorable part of humanity, gathered, as it were, in a single “space of thought,” is carried out in schematic form in the portraits of the Urbino Studiolo, Signorelli’s portrait series from the Cathedral in Orvieto. This idea will be inherited by Raphael.
On aesthetic, philosophical and literary questions, written in the spirit of allegorical scholasticism.
After the death glorified in the “New Life” of Beatrice, Dante, in order to join philosophy, “began to go to where it truly represented itself, namely to monastic schools and to the debates of philosophizing” (“Feast”).
During the years of wandering around Italy, Dante became the “poet of Justice” (“On Popular Eloquence”, II, II, 9). For changing " sweet new style“A style came that Dante himself would call “beautiful” (lo bello stile) and which a number of researchers tried to identify with Gothic. Dante traced his “beautiful style” to the creator of the Aeneid, Virgil (“Hell”, I, 87). "Beautiful Style" paved the way national style Renaissance- Renaissance style.
Portrait of Dante. Artist Sandro Botticelli. 1495
The change in styles reflected changes in Dante's worldview.
In the Symposium (between 1304 and 1307), politics is intertwined not only with ethics, but also with a deep analysis of the essence of poetics and linguistics.
Dante intended to write 14 allegorical canzones and philosophical treatises for them for the Symposium, but in fact he created only three commentary treatises and three canzones (two of them were written in Florence). Dante prefaced the book with an introduction treatise, in which he explained why the Symposium, in violation of the then prevailing traditions, was written not in Latin, but in the vernacular.
The introduction to the “Feast” forms the treatise “On Popular Eloquence,” where Dante developed the principles of a national Italian literary language and put forward a number of bold ideas that in many ways anticipated the Renaissance.
Dante preaches the idea of the need to imitate the “exemplary”, “correct poets”. Dante almost humanistically believed in the boundlessness of creative forces creative personality associated with the people. Grammatically organized vernacular, which in the treatise “On Popular Eloquence” is declared “original” and called “brilliant”, axial, correct, courtly “Italian folk speech”, should have been formed from many dialects of Italy as a result of the activities of writers. The treatise ends with a prophecy about social and cultural role of a new vernacular: “He will be a new light, a new sun, which will rise where the familiar has set; and it gives light to those who are in darkness and darkness, since the old sun no longer shines for them” (I, XIII, 12).
Developing literary language and forming a “beautiful style,” Dante in “The Symposium” brought them into line with the requirements of the “noble lady,” which he now calls “Madonna philosophy.” This is stated at the beginning of the third canzone, which is ideologically deep and stylistically innovative. In the canzone and the accompanying reasoning, Dante so deepens and democratizes the anti-class ideas of the “new style” about nobility as grace descending on a “well-disposed” soul that his thoughts about the “divinity” of man begin to take on an almost humanistic meaning. Nobility, Dante asserts in the Symposium, involves promoting the establishment of general prosperity and social harmony on earth in the forms of a new universal and autocratic Rome, for “to eliminate internecine wars and their causes, it is necessary that the whole earth and that everything that is given to the human race be owned , was a Monarchy, that is a single state, and had one sovereign, who, owning everything and not being able to desire more, would keep individual sovereigns within the boundaries of their possessions, so that peace would reign between them, which cities would enjoy, where neighbors would love each other, in this love everyone he received a house according to his needs and so that, having satisfied them, each person lived happily, for he was born for happiness” (“Feast”, IV, IV, 4).
In the “Feast” the idea of social world harmony and the statement that “every person is a friend to every other person by nature” (I, I, 8) are supplemented and justified by the thought of the harmony of the individual, the natural, earthly person. True, spiritual nobility, according to Dante, presupposes bodily beauty, nobility of the flesh (IV, XXV, 12 – 13).
Analysis of these ideas convinces us that they not only foreshadowed a worldview Italian Renaissance, but were also prerequisites for the formation of the Renaissance style. The desire to influence a wide circle of readers who knew only the popular language and were not accustomed to the standard book beauties gave rise to a rationalistic clarity of style, which, despite all its external dryness, differed from the scholastic treatise in better side. The Feast was dictated to Dante by the emerging Italian national consciousness.
