L'arte d'alluminar: Illustrations of Dante's Divine Comedy from the Tri-Colleges

The imaginative vision embodied in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy has inspired pictorial illustration since shortly after its first recounting in manuscript in the 1300s. This exhibition features books and prints from the collections of Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges and, over the course of three installations, presents illustrations of all 100 cantos of the Divine Comedy. Among the works on display will be anonymous 15th- and16th-century woodcuts, the canonical 18th- and 19th-century illustrations of John Flaxman, William Blake, and Gustave Doré, 20th-century renderings by Franz von Bayros, Amos Nattini, Salvador Dalí, Leonard Baskin and Tom Phillips, plus the contemporary graphic novels of Sandow Birk and Gary Panter.

Free and open to the public

Exhibit: January 20 to May 22, 2009 Inferno: January 20 to March 1, 2009 Pugatorio: March 2 to April 12, 2009 Paradise: April 13 to May 22

Location: Sharpless Gallery, Magill Library

Lecture: Seeing Through the Dark Wood: A History of Dante Illustration

Speaker: Christian Dupont February 9, 2009 – 4:30 p.m.

Location: Philips Wing, Magill Library Reception to follow“To tell about the good I found there,” Dante writes in the opening lines of Inferno,“I will also recount the other things I saw.” And so generations of artists have attempted to follow Dante on his mystical journey and bring to our eyes what Dante alone witnessed through his. Their illustrations help us see the dark wood, and sometimes through it to deeper meanings beyond.