Dante's extraordinarily rich visual imagination has inspired artists from manuscript illuminators in the Middle Ages to the present. This gallery is intended to introduce readers to some of the most famous illustrations of the poem. 
Doré: Alichino attacking Ciampolo
Doré: Matelda immerses Dante in Lethe
Rossetti: Paolo and Francesca da Rimini
Bronzino: Allegorical Portrait of Dante
Giotto: Scenes from the Life of Christ: Lamentation
Yates Thompson 36: Dante and Beatrice ascend to the Heaven of the Moon
Vellutello: Dante and Virgil between the giants and Cocytus
Doré: Virgil pointing out Ephialtes and the other giants
Botticelli: Punishment of the Panderers and Seducers and Flatterers
Botticelli: City of Dis and the heretics
Below click view for a particular artist's illustrations of the Comedy. Also listed below Dante Portraits and links to other artists. Yates Thompson 36View: The British Library's Yates Thompson 36 is one of the finest Italian illuminated manuscripts of the Comedy. Sandro Botticelli (1444-45 – 1510)View: Though Botticelli now enjoys a world-wide reputation as perhaps the most famous early Renaissance artist, his paintings were highly esteemed for only about a quarter century during his lifetime. Alessandro Vellutello (b.1473, death date unknown)View: Alessandro Vellutello was a Lucchese intellectual active in Venice from about 1515. John Flaxman (1755 – 1826)View: An English sculptor and illustrator, John Flaxman's interest in the arts began at an early age. Gustave Doré's (1832 – 1883)View: His illustrations and Dante's Divine Comedy have become so intimately connected that even today, nearly 150 years after their initial publication, the artist's rendering of the poet's text still determines our vision of the Commedia. Inf.5 illustrationsInf.33 illustrationsDante portraitsLinks to other artists |