Sandro Botticelli Books

In the 1480s, the great Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli was commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici to make a series of drawings to illustrate Dante's Divine Comedy. Botticelli gave stunning visual form to the poet's epic journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, but the project was never completed and the sheets were scattered. Now, more than 500 years after their creation, all 91 existing -- and very fragile -- vellum sheets will be shown together for the first time, in Berlin, Rome, and London. This book, which accompanies the exhibition, illustrates each of Botticelli's canto sheets in superb color, faced by a commentary on Botticelli's pictorial response to Dante's poem by Hein-Thomas Schulze Altcappenberg of the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, where 84 of the sheets are permanently housed. Eight essays on Botticelli, the Medici, and the Divine Comedy complete this unprecedented volume.

The first part of Dante's classic poem of faith follows the author with his guide Virgil through the circles of hell, describing the sinners and punishments witnessed there.

Der prachtvolle Band zu Sandro Botticelli (um 1445–1510) lädt ein, die Florentiner Kunst im Goldenen Zeitalter der Medici zu entdecken. Er beleuchtet Botticellis Meisterporträts, mythologische Gemälde und Andachtsbilder und thematisiert das Ideal weiblicher Schönheit in seinen Werken. (Englische Ausgabe ISBN 978-3-7757-2481-4)