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Illuminating Botticellis Chart of Hell

Deborah Parker

MLN, Volume 128, Number 1, January 2013 (Italian Issue), pp. 84-102

(Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: 10.1353/mln.2013.0009

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MLN128 (2013): 84102 2013 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

Illuminating BotticellisChart of Hell

Deborah Parker

Botticellis Chart of Hell (c.1485c.1500) has long been lauded asone of the most compelling visual representations of Dantes Inferno.The chart is one of ninety illustrations which the artist (14451510)

executed for a lavish codex of the Commediacommissioned by Lorenzodi Pierfrancesco de Medici, the cousin and ward of Lorenzo deMedici. Botticelli likely began work on the Dante illustrations in themid-1480s and finished them in the mid-1490s. Executed during aperiod of considerable interest in infernal cartography, BotticellisChart of Hell furnishes a panoptic display of the descent made byDante and Virgil through the abysmal valley of pain (Inf.4.8).1

Notwithstanding the comprehensive nature of this representation of

the Inferno, it has been difficult for scholars to assess its full intricacydue to the minute scale of the individual motifs. The original draw-ing measures 32.5 cm x 47.5 cm. The small figures in the originalmeasure less than one centimeter. Reproductions are often smaller,compounding this difficulty. Most of the critical discussion has focusedon the artists illustrations of the individual cantos. Kenneth Clark,Peter Brieger, Millard Meiss, and Charles Singleton have clarified therelationship of Botticellis illustrations to earlier and later manuscript

I am indebted to Ricardo Padron, Tom Conley, and Ted Cachey for their commentson an earlier version of this study that was delivered as a talk at the Renaissance Societyof America in 2009. I would like to thank Mark Parker, Paul Barolsky, Caroline Elam,and Jonathan Nelson for their comments on an earlier draft of this essay.

1All citations from the Inferno are to the following edition: The Divine Comedy of DanteAlighieri: Inferno, trans. Allen Mandelbaum (New York: Bantam, 1980, rpt. 2004).


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illuminations representations of the Inferno.2 More recently, PeterDreyer, Barbara Watts and the contributors to the 20002001 exhibitionof Botticellis illustrations to the Commediahave added considerably toour understanding of the intricacies found in the illustrations to theindividual cantos. Less attention, however, has been paid to the ways

in which the map of Hell represents an ingenious interpolation ofthe first canticle. One can read the map as one does the poem albeitin a distinctly different way. This essay seeks to provide a differentperspective on the map, one that explores Botticellis visual remedia-tion of a complex poetic narrative and how the artist literalizes thatwhich is allusive.3

2Kenneth Clark, The Drawings of Sandro Botticelli for Dantes Divine Comedy: after theoriginals in the Berlin Museums and the Vatican(New York: Harper & Row, 1976); Peter

H. Brieger, Millard Meiss, and Charles S. Singleton, Illuminated Manuscripts of the DivineComedy(Princeton: Princeton UP, 1969).3I employ remediation throughout this article along the terms discussed in Jay Bolter

and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media(Cambridge, MA: The MITPress, 1999). The two authors declare: we call the representation of one medium inanother remediation, and we will argue that remediation is the defining characteristicof new media (45). Remediation transpires at different intensities and with differentattitudes toward the earlier medium. It can be reverential, simply re-presenting an

Fig. 1. Botticelli, Chart of Hell, c.1480c.1495. Vat. Lat. 1896. Biblioteca Apostolica

Vaticana.


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My interest in the chart was itself prompted by another act of reme-diation. I am the editor of The World of Dante(www.worldofdante.org), a

multimedia digital archive created for researching and teaching theDivine Comedy. One of the components of the site is a digitized imageof the Chart of Hell. My collaborators at IATH (Institute for AdvancedTechnologies in the Humanities) created a digital image of the mapfrom a large color transparency that we had obtained through theVatican Library.4As my colleagues and I thought through the digitalrepresentation of Botticellis map, it led me to a reconsiderationof the artists own act of remediationhis presentation of Dantespoetic work in a visual medium. The magnification enabled throughdigitization proved especially propitious and illuminating. Most impor-tantly, the version of the map on The World of Dante allows viewersto scrutinize and identify details scarcely discernible in the originaleasily and appreciate more fully the way in which the chart furnishesa canny assimilation of Dantes narrative. Botticelli does not simplydemonstrate his extensive knowledge of the first canticlea fact thathas been frequently observedhe invests the map with stories, creat-ing in the process an encapsulation of the entire journey. Through

the Chart of Hell the well-informed reader can approach the poemin an alternative manner, savoring stages of the voyage through anintricate panoramic display.

In the Chart of Hell Botticelli spatializes and adapts what is essentiallya temporal experience, namely the reading of poetry. In following Bot-ticellis movement from word to image, we can better understand boththe constraints and the serendipitous grace involved in such artistictransactions. In what follows I will first clarify the number of episodes

earlier medium, and in the process rendering itself transparent, or it can be quitehostile, seeking to obliterate the predecessor. In Botticellis case the remediation ofDantes poem is reverential. My interest lies in exploring how this visual remediationchanges the position of the viewer/reader.

4Ultimately we decided to furnish a more informative version of the map for TheWorld of Dante. We created two ways of viewing the map: scholars can study Botticellismap on their own using Zoomify to enlarge areas they would like to scrutinize orexamine it through a transparent layer that we have added. This second layer allowsviewers the opportunity to select specific circles, rivers, or regions of Hell (all of which

are now labeled), follow the trajectory of Dante and Virgils descent, and see close-upsof the two wayfarers. The colors in this version are more saturated than those foundin reproductions of the map and reflect those on the transparency given us by theVatican Library. While a magnifying glass would allow something of the same effect asmagnification through digitization, viewing the map with a magnifying glass tends tocompartmentalize the image more. Zoomify allows for a smoother viewing of the magni-fied image. While the digital version allows us to enlarge the map, it goes without sayingthat digital surrogates do not eliminate the need to consult the original document.


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from the Infernothat Botticelli has illustrated, then explore how theartist achieves the effect of an ongoing narrative before examining

finally how he portrays aspects of Hells topography and the voyagenot mentioned by Dante

Recent studies of the map by Peter Dreyer, Barbara Watts, andGiovanni Morello have clarified the Charts relation to the manuscripttradition, to Baccio Baldinis engravings to the 1481 edition of thepoem with a commentary by Cristoforo Landino (14241498), and todepictions such as Nardo di Ciones fresco of Hell in the Strozzi Chapelin Santa Maria Novella in Florence (Botticelli based the engravings inthe 1481 Landino Dante on his earlier drawings.) Earlier representa-tions of Dantes Inferno were neither as comprehensive nor as detailedas that of Botticelli. Nardos fresco of 135457 renders Hell as a seriesof stratified layers. The artist confines himself to representing thepunishments and some of the landscape of Hell. Rather than locatingthe nine circles below one another, Nardo places the first five circlesof Hell adjacent to one another: the Lustful are depicted next to theGluttons, the Avaricious and Prodigal next to the Wrathful. Similarly,all three rings of the seventh circle of the Violent are placed next to

one another. The focus is on the punishments: Dante and Virgil donot appear anywhere in this rendition.5

Botticellis Chart differs notably from Nardos work, most notablyin the shape accorded Hell, the number of episodes depicted, andthe inclusion of the two wayfarers. The precision with which Botticellihas rendered various stages of the voyage merits particular attention.From Dante and Virgils momentous passage through the Gate of Hellto their dramatic exit, Botticelli illustrates more than fifty passages

from the poem. Many of the encounters with demons and souls areportrayed. A comparison of the chart to the individual cantos revealsa high degree of consistency suggesting that the chart was executedafter the illustrations had been completed. The only time the twowayfarers are not shown on the Chart is in Malebolge, a section ofthe map simply too small to allow the inclusion of their movements.

The artists sources for the chart extend beyond sources adaptedfrom the miniatures of the manuscript tradition. Botticelli incorporatesdetails culled from Antonio du Tuccio Manettis (140397) observa-

5For an example of a depiction of Dantes Inferno which does feature occasionalrepresentations of the two travelers, typically in colloquy with one another, see thereproduction of Bartolomeo di Fuorsinos illustration in Illuminated Manuscripts ofthe Divine Comedy, eds. Peter Brieger, Millard Meiss, and Charles S. Singleton, 2 vols.(Princeton: Princeton UP, 1969) 2.31.


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tions concerning the Infernos cartography in his rendition. Manettisideas are posthumously outlined in Girolamo Benivienis Dialogo diAntonio Manetti(1506).6Far more comprehensive than the synopsisof Manettis calculations published in Landinos 1481 commentary,the Dialogoposits an extended conversation between Benivieni andManetti on the site, form, and measurements of Hell. Basing his

Fig. 2. Nardo di Cione, Hell, 13547. Strozzi Chapel, SantaMaria Novella, Florence.

6

I am indebted to Ted Cachey for the reference to Manettis role in the Benivienidialogue. For the text of the dialogue, which was published at the end of his 1506 Gi-untine edition of the poem, see Hieronymo Benivieni,Dialogo di Antonio Manetti,CittadinoFiorentino Circa al sito, forma et misure dello Inferno di Dante Alighieri, ed. Nicola Zingarelli(Citt di Castello: Lapi, 1807) 4445, 65, 87, 104, 109. For discussions of the popularityof discussions of Hells topography in the late Quattrocento and early Cinquecento, seeJohn Kleiner, Mismapping the Underworld. Daring and Error in Dantes Comedy(Stanford,CA: Stanford UP, 1994).


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computations on Dantes mention that the last ditch of Malebolgemeasures half the circumference of the previous one (eleven miles

rather than twenty-two), Manetti estimates the width of Limbo as 87 miles. On the Chart the circumference of the first five circles ofHell is notably greater than the dimensions of Malebolge.

Botticelli also follows Manetti in his portrayal of other particulars.Dante encounters the Neutrals or Pusillanimous souls in the vestibuleof Hell after passing through the Gate of Hell. In Benivienis DialogoManetti describes the place as una grandissima cauerna tra la super-ficie dello aggregato et el fiume di Acheronte (an enormous cavernbetween the surface of the aggregate and the Acheron River).7Bot-ticelli follows Manetti both in installing the Neutrals in a cavern onthe Chart and portraying Upper Hell as an amphitheater. Manettisobservations also likely inspired Botticellis decision to depict the wellof the giants as rising perpendicular from Cocytus and the depictionof Satan surrounded by a round sphere of ice. In his commentaryLandino does not comment on these particulars.8 Taken togetherthese details show that Botticelli had not only assimilated earliermanuscript illustrations and the particulars of Dantes text, but also

contemporary critical observations about Hells cartography.9In thisrespect the Chart of Hell furnishes a particularly Florentine interpre-tation of Hells topography.

Such obsessive detail was not always appreciated. Vasari chides Bot-ticelli for having wasted much of his time, bringing infinite disorderto his life in devoting so much time to studying Dante, but suchassiduous attention is not without considerable merit.10 The Chart

7

Benivieni,Dialogo104.8For Landinos synopsis of Manettis mathematical calculations on the dimensionsand form of the Inferno, see Cristoforo Landino, Comento sopra la Comedia, ed. PaoloProcaccioli, 4 vols. (Rome: Salerno, 2001)1.27078. Landino makes no mention of anycavern in his discussion of the Neutrals nor does he comment on shape of the well ofthe giants. In his illustration to Inf.34 Botticelli draws a circle around the middle ofSatans body that is clearly intended to represent the lake of ice that surrounds himand which is visible on the Chart.

9It is possible that Botticelli learned of Manettis ideas from personal acquaintance.Herbert Horne discovered in a ricordo of Manetti, he copied a letter of Simone diMariano Botticelli, the artists brother. See Herbert P Horne, Botticelli Painter of Florence

(London, 1908, reprinted Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980) 271. Given that he illustratedLandinos 1481 Dante, he would have been familiar with Landinos synopsis of Manettiscalculations on the dimensions of the Inferno.

10Giorgio Vasari, Sandro Botticelli, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, trans.Gaston du C. de Vere, 2 vols. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996)1:538. For the Italiantext, Giorgio Vasari, Le vite dei pi eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti, ed. Paola DellaPergola, Luigi Grassi and Giovanni Previtali (Novara Istituto Geografico de AgostiniRome: Newton Compton, (1996 ) 3.19899 in which Vasari notes e figur lo inferno elo mise in stampa, dietro al quale consum di molto tempo, per il che non lavorandofu cagione di infiniti disordini alla vita sua.


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of Hell attests to an astonishing familiarity with the poem. Appendix1 shows my estimation of the passages of the poem depicted on the

Chart. Beginning with the opening of Inf. 3, where Dante reads theinscription over Hells gate, Botticelli illustrates in succession Dantesand Virgils encounters with the presiding demons and souls foundamong the Virtuous Pagans, the Lustful, the Avaricious and Prodigaland the Wrathful. Among the latter group we see Phlegyas transportingDante and Virgil to the gates of Dis, the arrival of the two travelers inLower Hell, and their entry into the sixth circle of the heretics. Thepainter illustrates all three rings of the seventh circle of the violent;the bloody waterfall which runs into Malebolge; the punishment ofthe Usurers; Geryon flying Dante and Virgil to the top of Malebolge;the punishments of the fraudulent sinners in the ten divisions ofMalebolge; the Giants, including the episode of Antaeus loweringDante and Virgil down to Cocytus; the punishment of the Traitors,replete with a detail of Alessandro and Napoleone degli Alberti (aninstance of fratricide among the traitors), Satan, and finally Danteand Virgil climbing down Satans body. Botticelli does not confinehimself to depicting the major divisions of Hell as one typically finds

in Renaissance or modern maps of Dantes Hell; he takes pains todepict all the punishments described as well as Dantes and Virgilssuccessive meetings with sinners or demons within a particular circle.Such moments are especially apparent in Botticellis depiction of thefirst five circles of Hell. This remarkable attention to detail is extendedto the depiction of Hells topography and architecture. We see, forexample, the seven walls surrounding the castle of Limbo. The Charteven shows vestiges of the earthquake caused by the Harrowing of Hell:

the artist has meticulously depicted the mass of tumbled rocks outsidethe tomb of Anastasius II and the broken ridge over the bolgia of theHypocrites in Malebolge. The precision extends to Malebolge itselfwhere we can see minutely rendered particulars such as the crucifixionof the arch-hypocrite Caiaphas, a reptilian monster attacking the thiefVanni Fucci, and a decapitated Bertran de Born, the Provenal poetwho sowed discord between Henry I and his son.

The inclusion of such details shows not only the comprehensivenature of this pictorial adaptation of Hell, it attests to Botticellis skill

as a draughtsman. The Dante drawings were initially incised with ablind stylus into the parchment, and then overdrawn with a lead-tinstylus that leaves a grey line. The artist subsequently went over thesedrawings with brown iron-gall ink before painting in the colors withthe kind of tempera pigments used by manuscript illuminators. Thegilded border constitutes one of the most striking features of the Chartof Hell: it creates an illusionistic effect, producing essentially the look


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of a gilded frame on a painting.11As the most completely colored workof the Dante illustrations, the details depicted in Malebolge exemplify

the painstaking care with which Botticelli executed this illustration.12One of the most distinctive features of the Chart of Hell is Botti-

cellis insistent focus on the progress of Dante and Virgil through theabyss: the two wayfarers appear no less than twenty-seven times. As inthe detailed illustrations to the cantos, Dante is attired in a scholarscap and sleeveless lucco, a loose-fitting tunic worn by persons of dif-ferent ranks over a green long-sleeved cassock; Virgil wears a bluelong-sleeved undergarment, a purple sleeveless over garment anda taller cone-shaped hat. Whereas some earlier manuscripts tend toshow him garbed in blue, in the chart Dante wears red, possibly fol-lowing a Florentine tradition. From the portrait of the poet attributedto the school of Giotto in the Bargellos Capella della Maddalenato Domenico di Michelinos DanteReading from the Divine Comedy inFlorences Duomo, Dante is consistently shown in a red garment.13Without the multiple portrayals of the two wayfarers, we would beleft with a static cross-section of Hell. In portraying the trajectory oftheir descent, however, Botticelli creates two unique perspectives: if

we examine the map from top to bottom, we can follow the progres-sion of Dantes and Virgils journey, which in turn follows Dantesnarrative. If, on the other hand, we look at the map all at once wehave the impression of viewing the entire journey simultaneously.Botticelli effectively transforms the linear experience of reading thepoem into a panoptic display.

Botticellis pictorial narrative differs from the poetic one in animportant way: there is no distinction between Dante the poet and

Dante the pilgrim. On the Chart of Hell Dante is objectified, form-ing an indivisible unit with his guide Virgil. Indeed one might easilyconclude that Virgil is the more prominent figure: if one looks closelyat each of the depictions, we see that Dante is almost always behindVirgil, who is often pointing out something to his charge. In portray-

11I am indebted to Caroline Elam for the information on Botticellis technique ofillustration and the depiction of the illusionistic gilded border.

12

On this point see Charles Dempsey, Botticelli, Sandro, Encyclopedia of ItalianRenaissance and Mannerist Art, ed. Jane Turner, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan ReferenceLimited, 2000) 1.246. For a detailed discussion of the artists drawing techniques inthe Dante illustrations, see Doris Oltrogge, Robert Fuchs, and Olivia Hahn, Finito andNon finitoTechniques in BotticellisDivine Comedy, in Sandro Botticelli,The Drawings forDantes Divine Comedy(London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2000): 33441.

13For an excellent overview of Renaissance portraits of Dante, see Jonathan Nelson,Dante Portraits in Sixteenth-Century Florence, Gazette des Beaux-Arts(1992):5977.


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ing the two travelers together, the chart elides the difference betweenthe poet who narrates the story of his journey and the pilgrim who

experiences it. The map begins with Inf.3 and the inscription overthe Gate of Hell. Interestingly, Botticelli has not portrayed Dantesdark night of the soul in the dark wood, the subject of the first twocantos. This decision further occludes the centrality of Dante the poet.In this encyclopedic rendering, the dramas of individuals, includingthose of the poet, are subsumed to the greater interest of portrayingthe grand design of Hell.

Botticellis objective, however, was not the portrayal of the poet/pilgrim distinction. The artist seeks to convey the continuum of nar-rative in his numerous depictions of Dante and Virgil. Art historianshave noted the artists interest in portraying different moments of astory, a convention derived from fourteenth-century art and evidencedin the Moses frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, the four panels of theLife and Miracles of St. Zenobius, and the spalliere paintings devoted tothe Story of Virginia, the Story of Lucretia, and Boccaccios eerie tale ofNastagio degli Onesti. The Moses and Nastagio paintings, completedbefore Botticelli undertook the Dante commission, and the Virginia

and Lucretia paintings, executed in the 1490s, portray different scenesof a narrative both within a single panel and across different panels. 14

We can best appreciate the way in which Botticelli portrays narra-tive progression by examining his depiction of specific circles of Hell.In his rendition of Limbo, Botticelli illustrates four of the incidentsrecounted in Inf.4: we see Virgil, Lucan, Homer, Ovid and Horacestanding before a fire, pausing at the entrance to the castle, travers-ing a green meadow within the castles walls, and paying tribute to

Dante. As Dante reports, the bella scola (splendid school) ofpagan poets claim him as one of their own, declaring him sesto fracotanto senno, (sixth among such intellects; Inf.4.102), a detailwhich Botticelli artfully heightens by elevating Dante above the otherfive poetsexaggerating in so doing Dantes claim of equality. Bot-ticelli also portrays multiple episodes recounted in the meeting withthe Lustful: we see Dante and Virgil before Minos, their observationthat the bufera infernal (hellish hurricane; Inf.5.31) that battersthe Lustful, Dante speaking to Paolo and Francesca, and finally the

pilgrims swoon upon hearing her doleful tale. Botticellis treatmentof Geryon also shows his interest in portraying the progressive stages

14For an excellent discussion of the way in which Botticelli portrays narrative in theNastagio degli Onesti panels, see Christina Olsen, Gross Expenditure: BotticellisNastagio degli Onesti Panels, Art History15 (1992):14670.


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of the journey: the two poets are first portrayed atop the beast, thenat the top of the eighth circle from which they survey Malebolge.Since Botticellis illustrations of Inf. 17 are no longer extant, it is notpossible to compare the depictions of Limbo and the Lustful on theChart to his treatment of these cantos, but we can compare his treat-ment of Geryon. A detail from the drawing that accompanies Inf.17shows shows the painters interest in rendering sequential momentsof narration, which is even more evident in the individual drawings.In both the Chart of Hell and the illustrations for the individual canti,

Botticelli takes pains to render successive events, essentially spatial-izing the temporal experience of reading Dantes narrative. Ratherthan reading down the page of the manuscript, the viewer reads thetrajectory of the voyage as Botticelli portrays it.

What I have called the spatialization of poetry is most evident indetails that Botticelli adds to the Chart. Botticelli takes into accountwhat is not explicitly recorded by Dante but can be inferred from thepoem. His depiction of the scene at the river Acheron exemplifies

this tendency. Whereas Dante describes the misery of the recentlyarrived damned souls and compares their descent into Charonsboat to falling leaves (itself a Virgilian simile), Botticelli shows whathappens after the damned tumble into Charons boat, namely theirtransport across the Acheron. Botticellis portrayal of Charon, on theother hand, illuminates another canny interpretation of what Dantes

Fig. 3. Botticelli, Detail of Limbo, Chart of Hell, World of Dante.


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Fig. 4. Botticelli, Detail of Geryon, Chart of Hell, World of Dante.

Fig. 5. Botticelli, Detail of Inf.17, c.1480c.1495, Drawings forDantes Divine Comedy, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin.


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words suggest. Dante describes the ferryman as Caron demonio, conocchi di braga (The demon Charon, with his eyes like embers;

Inf.3.109). While Dante designates the ferryman as a demon, he makesno mention of demonic attributes, singling out for mention only hishoary cheeks (lanose gote) and fiery orbs. Dantes characterizationis economical, the details carefully condensed. Botticelli depicts theferryman as a winged demon, giving him a more explicitly diaboli-cal appearance than Dantes Charon. In this detail, Botticelli followsdepictions of Charon discernible in other manuscripts: CristoforoCortese also depicts Charon with wings in a manuscript dated to thefirst half of the fifteenth century.15This enhancement is more than animaginative interpolation of the poetic text. In portraying Charon withwings, Cortese and Botticelli link the ferryman to the other demonicguardians who preside over circles two through five and to the devilsthat populate Dis and Malebolge.16Such additions not only rendersthe patterns extant in Dantes poem, they suggests new ones.

Other interpretations are evident in Botticellis depiction of Limbo.For example, Dante describes the verdant landscape and nobilecastello toward which Dante walks with the luminaries of the bella

scola. Botticelli embellishes the allusion to the seven walls that sur-round the castle by adding seven towers. Possibly a symbol of the sevenliberal arts, the addition of seven towers underscores the distinctivenature of the castle and its inhabitants within the landscape of Limbo.Earlier manuscript illustrations usually show only one tower. AlthoughDante does not describe the landscape of Limbo aside from the areaaround the castle, Botticelli creates his own topography, portraying thearea outside the castle as a barren landscape and in so doing makes

the landscape of the first circle consistent with that of the rest of theInferno. As in his portrayal of Charon, the artist furnishes details notprovided by the poet. Where Dante condenses, Botticelli here expands.At once we sense how fortunate these noble souls are, as we grasptheir splendid isolation amid a landscape of death, despair, and suf-fering. Botticellis treatment provides an emphatic contextualizationfor the Virtuous Pagansthe afterlife as a limited respite from pain,not the full glory of Paradise.

We find another canny inference in the artists depiction of the Usu-

rers. While the Usurers are punished in the burning plain along with

15See Illuminated Manuscripts 2.64.16It is worth noting that the illustration attributed to Giuliano di Sangallo by Dreyer

also shows Charon with wings. Hence Botticelli and the artist of this drawing are likelyfollowing earlier depictions of Charon with wings in illuminated manuscripts. This draw-ing also includes one set of stairs and shows Satan surrounded by a circular lake of ice.


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the Sodomites and Blasphemers, Dante postpones his encounter withthem until the middle of Inf.17, inserting the pilgrims description of

the misery of the Usurers between the introduction of Geryon and theflight to the eighth circle. In his commentary Landino merely notesthat the Usurers are su lorlo al septimo cerchio (on the edge ofthe seventh circle).17Botticelli, however, captures this separation ina distinct and subtle way: he places the Usurers below the Sodomitesand Blasphemers (see fig.4). Their positioning captures Dantes separa-tion of the Usurers from the other violent souls brilliantly. The artistfollows the same procedure in his illustration to this canto: here theprecipice drops off even more sharply allowing the artist to show the

Usurers sitting on the ledge below the Sodomites running above.18In both the Chart and the illustration to Inf.17 Botticellis ingeniousobjectification of the poem enforces a clarification of space that Dantessubjective narrative need not follow.

One of Botticellis most notable visual interpolations is the inclusionof stairways between the vestibule and Limbo, the third and fourthcircles (Gluttons and the Avaricious and Prodigal), and between thefourth and fifth circles (Avaricious and Prodigal and the Wrathful)

(see fig.4). At no point in the Infernodoes Dante explain how the twowayfarers descend from one circle to the next. Upon seeing a rivulet

Fig. 6. Botticelli, Detail of Charon, Chart of Hell, World of Dante.

17Landino 2.724.18Other manuscript illustrators tend to show the usurers on the same plane as Dante

and Virgil. SeeIlluminated Manuscripts2.197.


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of the Phlegethon after the two had crossed the river two cantos ear-lier, Virgil describes their descent in very general terms: Tu sai che

l loco tondo; / e tutto che sie venuto molto, / pur a sinistra. gicalando al fondo (You know that this place is round; / and thoughthe way you have come is long, and always to the left and towardthe bottom; Inf.14.12426). Once they have climbed onto Geryonsback, Virgil declares: Omai si scende per s fatte scale (our descentis by this kind of stairs; Inf.17.82). Scale, however, is employedmetaphorically in this passage, as elsewhere, where Virgil refers toSatans body as scale, the means by which the two pilgrims will exitHell (Inf.34.82). For Botticelli, on the other hand, the stairways arenot symbolic but functional and concrete: they indicate how Danteand Virgil make their way from one circle to another. Such additionsconstitute a distinctly visual reading of the poem, showing readers notsimply what the pilgrim saw but also what Dante does not describe.19

Such features of the Chart of Hell suggest how Botticelli has adaptedthe script put forth by Dante. Ultimately, the stairways furnish a par-ticularly visual resolution to the absence of any information concern-ing the means by which Dante and Virgil make their way from one

circle to another. The challenge for the artist is to render the descentthrough Hell in a coherent way. To this end Botticelli literalizes thatwhich is allusive, concentrated, or metaphoric in Dante, explicitlyproviding details not furnished in the narrative.

We might ask ourselves at this point what is the difference betweenreading Dantes poem and viewing Botticellis Chart of Hell. Howdoes the eye move through Botticellis map? What achieves newprominence in viewing the map as opposed to reading the poem?

First of all the artists remediation of the Infernochanges the subjectposition of the reader/viewer: whereas reading is a linear temporalprocess with a sharply defined and delimited focus, the experienceof viewing the map is by turns more diffuse and more fragmented.Although one might study the chart progressively from top to bot-tom, the minuteness of the details makes this difficult. The viewerseye tends to move between individual detail and the overall structureof Hell. What we might call the work of readingthe recollection

19Watts 176. In another article Watts notes that Botticelli renders Dantes geographymore exact in Purgatory. For example, the artist portrays Dantes and Virgils progressthrough quella cruna (needles eye) of Purg.10.16, a narrow opening in the rockof mountain of Purgatory by showing the poets progress through a narrow openingof stone. See Barbara J. Watts, Artistic Competition, Hubris, and Humility: SandroBotticellis Response to Visibile Parlare,Dante Studies114 (1996):44.


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of past events and the anticipation of future incidentis here mademanifest and inescapable. In this sense the Chart of Hell furnishes

a visual index or synopsis to which readers might refer as they readthe Inferno. What Dantes reader, and, at times, Dantes pilgrim, canforget in the immediacy of the moment, Botticellis viewer can neverreally evade in this visual synopsis. While there is no obvious centerof focus, every place in Hell is always contextualized. Every encounterwith a demon or soul is seen in terms of the overall structure of Hell.As a result, momentous encounters such as Dantes meetings withPaolo and Francesca, Farinata, Pier della Vigna, or Ugolino becomesmall details in the larger representation of damnation. Propinquityand intimacy give way to panoptic display; detail is subordinated tostructure; human emotions are subsumed to the divine design of Hell.These details, in turn, are given their due in the detailed drawingsto the cantos.

It is worth noting that Dante provides his own chart of Hell in Inf.11. As the two wayfarers accustom themselves to the stench of LowerHell, Virgil takes the opportunity to explain the division of sins in theInferno by describing the sins of violence and fraud whose inhabitants

are punished in the seventh and eighth circles:

My son, within this ring of broken rocks,he then began, there are three smaller circles;like those that you are leaving, they range down. Those circles are all full of cursed spirits;so that your seeing of them may suffice,learn the how and why of their confinement. Of every malice that earns hate in Heaven,Injustice is the end; and each such endby force or fraud brings harm to other men. However, fraud is mans peculiar vice;God finds it more displeasingand therefore, The fraudulent are lower, suffering more.The violent take all of the first circle;but since one uses force against three persons, that circles built of three divided rings.To God and to ones self and to ones neighborI mean, to them or what is theirsone can Do violence, as you shall now hear clearly [ . . . ] (Inf.11.1633)

Explicating prosaically matters such as the three main categories of sin(incontinence, violence and fraud), what transgressions are punishedin each division, and the difference between fraud and treachery, Danterenders into poetry Aristotelian ideas on malice and the dispositions


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of the soul that Heaven opposes. This canto, interestingly enough, haswon little praise among critics and readers. Often facetiously dubbed

a filler by critics, Inf.11 is unremittingly methodical. As Robert Hol-lander puts it: this canto is not nearly as exciting as those that havegone before (and those that will come after), since it involves noth-ing but pedantic lecturing.20Nevertheless, Inf.11 provides us with amoment in which Dantes temporal perspective becomes spatial. Assuch, this account of the overall scheme of Hell furnishes a reveal-ing point of comparison with Botticellis panoptic display, ultimatelyaffording an opportunity to examine the way in which the artistsvisual embodiment of the narrative affects fruition. In a sense theviewer of the Chart of Hell is in the same position as the reader ofInf.11: whether studying the chart or reading this canto, the overallstructure of the blind prison is always apparent.

Botticellis remediation of the poem, his representation of theentire journey in all its simultaneity, changes the subject position ofthe reader/viewer significantly. To see this difference one need onlycompare the experience of reading of Inf.10 to Inf.11. The pilgrimshighly dramatic encounter with Farinata throws us inside the volatile

world of Florentine politics. Dante is initially daunted as he standsbefore Farinata, who rises imperiously from his sepulcher, comavesselinferno a gran dispitto (as if he had tremendous scorn of Hell;Inf.10.36). It is not Farinatas place in the larger scheme of punish-ment and damnation that is foremost here; it is the tension betweenhim and Dante, which arises both from personal relations and politicalcommitment that animates this scene. In listening to Virgils explana-tion of the divisions of Hell and disposition of its inhabitants in Inf.11,

however, individuality is subordinated. It is as if we are looking at antsfrom a great height: we see the mass not the individual.Whereas Dantes textualized account of space in Inf.11 has its

longuers, Botticellis readable map is marvelously engaging. Whilethe intricacy of the map would impress any viewer, the painstakingrendering of so many moments from the Infernal voyage offers some-thing akin to a wunderkammerfor readers with a profound knowledgeof the first canticle. Ultimately, viewing the Chart of Hell becomesan act of memory, as its wondrous particulars take the reader/viewer

back to the original through artful remediation. Botticellis visualembodiment of the Inferno is not transparent. The artist intervenes

20Dante Alighieri, Inferno, trans. Robert and Jean Hollander (New York: Doubleday,2000)194.


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in his remediation to put his own stamp on the infernal journey andDantes role in it. If reading the poem places us inside the narrative,

the Chart of Hell shifts our mode of entry into this work from insideto outside. The artist has brilliantly memorialized not simply Dantespoem but Florentine culture in adapting contemporary discussionsof Hells topography. The Chart effectively takes us from the personalto the public sphere, from a subjective to objective perspective, fromDantes vision to a cultural view of his great achievement.

What we see, then, in this comparison between poem and chart,between word and image, is a particular kind of incommensurability.Dantes commitments to the temporal, the narrative, and the progres-sive experience of reading produce a complexity of character andimmediacy of appeal. We are most dramatically in the moment. Bot-ticellis representation foregrounds the spatial, a decision which hasthe effect of flattening encounters with different characters by showingus the context for each sin. The poems psychology and plot give wayto the charts timeless qualities of structure. If Dantes account of theillusionistic sculptures in Purgatory constitutes an encomium to theverisimilitude of great art, memorably described as visibile parlare,

(Purg.10.95) Botticelli has furnished us with an eminently readableimagelegibile dipingeresomething which comes as no surprisefrom an artist whom Vasari aptly described as a persona sofistica.21

University of Virginia

APPENDIX 1

Passages from the InfernoDepicted on Botticellis Chart of Hell

Inf.3.19: Dante and Virgil read inscription over the Gate of HellInf.3.5557: Neutrals chasing a bannerInf.3.7072: Damned before Charons boatInf.3.78: AcheronInf.3.82: Charon

21Vasari, Le vite dei pi eccellenti pittori 3.198. For an intriguing discussion of howBotticellis illustrations to Purg.10, which are strikingly illusionistic in their use of per-spective to portray a three dimensional sense of space, might constitute a response toDantes claim that human art cannot hope to match the realism of Gods art, see Watts,Artistic Competition. See also Barbara Watts, The Word Imaged: Dantes Commediaand Sandro Botticellis San Barnaba Altarpiece, Lectura Dantis: Visibile Parlare. Danteand the Art of the Italian Renaissance, ed. Deborah Parker (1998):20346.


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Inf.4.68: Dante and Virgil before a fire with Lucan, Homer, Ovid,Horace

Inf.4.106: The six poets at entrance of the castleInf.4.111: The six poets converse on a meadow inside the castleInf.5.4: Dante and Virgil before MinosInf.5.3133: Punishment of the LustfulInf.5.74: Dante and Virgil speaking to Paolo and FrancescaInf.5.142: Dantes swoonInf.6.1315: Dante and Virgil before CerberusInf.6.1921: Punishment of the GluttonsInf.6.38: Dante and Virgil speaking to CiaccoInf.7.4: Dante and Virgil before PlutusInf.7.2527: Punishment of the Avaricious and ProdigalInf.7.10003: Descent to StyxInf.7.11220: Punishment of the Wrathful and SullenInf.8.1617: Phlegyas in his boatInf.8.7681: Phlegyas leaves Dante and Virgil at the Gates of DisInf.9.12123: Punishment of the HereticsInf.11.2: Mass of toppled rock caused by Harrowing of Hell

Inf.11.79: Tomb of Anastasius IIInf.12.47: PhlegethonInf.12.5257: Punishment of the Murderers, Plunderers, and TyrantsInf.13.46: Wood of the SuicidesInf.14.1924: Punishment of the Blasphemers and SodomitesInf.16.10305: Bloody waterfallInf.17.3136: Punishment of the UsurersInf.17.11517: Geryon flying Dante and Virgil to the top of the eighth Circle

Inf.17.4344: Dante observes the UsurersInf.18.121: Dante and Virgil survey MalebolgeInf.18.3436: Punishment of the Panderers and SeducersInf.18.11214: Punishment of the FlatterersInf.19.2224: Punishment of the SimonistsInf.20.1015: Punishment of the DivinersInf.21.1921: Punishment of the BarratorsInf.21.10608: Broken bridge over the sixth bolgia (Hypocrites)Inf.23.5863: Punishment of the Hypocrites

Inf.23.11523: Punishment of arch-hypocrites (Caiaphas and otherPharisees)Inf.24.9196: Punishment of the thieves, including Vanni Fucci (shownseated on the left attacked by snakes)Inf.26.4041: Punishment of the False Counselors


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Inf.28.3842: Punishment of the Sowers of discordInf.29.4651: 6769: Punishment of the Falsifiers

Inf.31.3133: GiantsInf.31.7078: Nimrod with his hornInf.31.11529: Virgil addressing AntaeusInf.31.14243: Antaeus lowering Dante and Virgil to CocytusInf.32.2223: CocytusInf.34.1115: Punishment of the traitors frozen in Cocytus, includingAlessandro and Napoleone degli Alberti (two souls shown together)Inf.34.5357: Satan gnawing on Judas, Brutus and Cassius

botticelli chart

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