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Article: Gore and Glory DANTE ALIGHIERI'S `DIVINE COMEDY' HAS INSPIREDARTISTS AS DIVERSE AS ROSSETTI AND THE CHAPMAN BROTHERS. BUT WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES BOTTICELLI'S ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE POEM - ON SHOW AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY FROM THIS WEEK - THE GREATEST OF ALL? BY CATHERINE PEPINSTER
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- March 11, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2001 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Nobody has ever described heaven and hell in all their gore and
glory in so influential a way as Dante Alighieri. Perhaps that is why
the ideas of the visionary 14th-century Florentine poet can be found
in the most disparate places: Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini,
Rodin's The Kiss, Michael Dibdin's thriller A Rich Full Death, and
the movie Hannibal are just a handful of creative endeavours which
all owe a debt to Dante's tripartite work, La Divina Commedia,
comprising the three parts Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso.
Although Dante was a writer, he was a master of the visual
imagination and so his work has had a particularly fruitful effect on
art. The cantos of the Comedy which were ...