The popularity of Dante in France in the early 19th century. Aubin-Louis Millin and ms. XIII.C.4 of the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples

Gennaro Toscano
From the last quarter of the 18th century, following a lack of empathy shown by French philosophers towards Dante during the Enlightenment, new prose translations of the Divina Commedia made this monument of early Italian literature and its author more widely accessible. It was the generation of romantics that then fostered a more comprehensive understanding of Dante and his work in early 19th-century France.
In parallel with the rediscovery of Dante by illustrious writers, new interest aroused by the production of the Primitives increasingly drew the attention of artists to the Commedia. From John Flaxman to William Blake, Dante's poem went on to enjoy extraordinary success all over Europe.
The story of Paolo and Francesca was immortalized by the most important artists of the time, particularly by Ingres, who from 1814 painted at least seven versions of this celebrated episode of the Commedia, dwelling on the moment in which the two young lovers discovered their passion when reading of the love between Guinevere and Lancelot. In the very years during which Dante became popular in the French capital, the archaeologist Aubin-Louis Millin (1759-1818), on the occasion of a visit to the Royal Library in Naples in 1813, commissioned a series of tracings from the old vignettes in the copy of the Commedia today housed at the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples (ms. XIII.C.4). The clarity and linearity of these ink drawings represented in the 14th-century manuscript of Naples reminded him in fact of the celebrated prints from the edition of Landino's Comento of 1481, as well as those taken from the drawings of Flaxman.

Index

Carl Brandon Strehlke Looking for Giotto
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Francesco Aceto Between Giotto and Simone Martini. A rare painted portal with 'Stories of the Passion' in Naples cathedral and its topographical and liturgical context
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Victor M. Schmidt A proposal for Ambrogio Lorenzetti's panel paintings from the church of San Procolo in Florence
read abstract » pp. 23-30
Keith Christiansen The architecture in a Bohemian panel of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
read abstract » pp. 31-35
Gabriele Fattorini On the 'Annunciation' of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum by Jacopo della Quercia
read abstract » pp. 36-46
Francesco Caglioti Desiderio da Settignano the portraitist: “una testa del Chardinale di Portoghallo”, or the 'Saint Lawrence' in the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo in Florence
read abstract » pp. 47-59
Alessandro Angelini Francesco di Giorgio in Urbino and the iconography of the 'Flagellation'
read abstract » pp. 60-68
Gianluca Amato Benedetto da Maiano: two proposals for the catalogue of terracottas
read abstract » pp. 69-77
Antonio Mazzotta Evidence pointing to the identity of the 'Master of the Sforza Altarpiece'
read abstract » pp. 78-85
Roberto Bartalini Raphael and Sodoma in the Stanza della Segnatura. New findings
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Giovanni Agosti e Jacopo Stoppa Doxiana
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Michele Maccherini Three papers on Beccafumi
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Rosanna De Gennaro About the little-known opisthographic marble altarpiece of the abbey of Montevergine
read abstract » pp. 122-131
Elisabetta Cioni Notes on the 17th-century reliquary of the right arm of Saint John the Baptist of Siena cathedral
read abstract » pp. 132-142
Tomaso Montanari Bernini's caricatures: spirit without corpus?
read abstract » pp. 143-147
Gennaro Toscano The popularity of Dante in France in the early 19th century. Aubin-Louis Millin and ms. XIII.C.4 of the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples
read abstract » pp. 148-159
Federica Testa Paolo Lombardi, photographer: portrait of an art dealer
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Laura Cavazzini Alceo Dossena and the forgery of Gothic sculpture between Lombardy and Tuscany
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Luca Quattrocchi Italian art for National Socialism. Antonio Maraini and the Ausstellung Italienischer Kunst von 1800 bis zur Gegenwart exhibition in Berlin in 1937
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Marco M. Mascolo Wilhelm R. Valentiner, Renaissance sculpture and the problems of connoisseurship
read abstract » pp. 187-194