Resumen de Defining the State in "Commedia" Miniatures: Pictorial Responses to Dante's Condemnation of Florence
The miniatures executed to illustrate Dante's Divine Comedy can be interpreted as their illuminators' pictorial responses to Dante's condemnation of the Italian city-state of Florence. The 33 full cycles of Commedia miniatures produced between Dante's death in 1321 and the advent of printing in the 1480s frequently promote the illuminator's hometown and condemn its enemies with a thoroughness and sophistication that suggest a profound commitment to those issues. For example, in selecting the subjects and symbols of the images, the illuminators, and perhaps the scholars who sometimes helped them, often inserted oblique references to the international relationships of their hometown. Moreover, in articulating those and other, more obvious references to official interests, the illuminators often reinforced their biased iconography by the subtlest of pictorial means, using tint, proportion, and other devices far more refined than those usually discussed by their advisors.
