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Illuminating Botticelli’s Chart of Hell Deborah Parker MLN, Volume 128, Number 1, January 2013 (Italian Issue), pp. 84-102 (Article) Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: 10.1353/mln.2013.0009 For additional information about this article /journals/mln/summary/v128/128.1.parker.html Illuminating Botticelli’s Chart of Hell ❦ Deborah Parker Botticelli’s Chart of Hell (c.1485–c.1500) has long been lauded as one of the most compelling visual representations of Dante’s Inferno. The chart is one of ninety illustrations which the artist (1445–1510) executed for a lavish codex of the Commedia commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, the cousin and ward of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Botticelli likely began work on the Dante illustrations in the mid-1480s and finished them in the mid-1490s. Executed during a period of considerable interest in infernal cartography, Botticelli’s Chart of Hell furnishes a panoptic display of the descent made by Dante and Virgil through the “abysmal valley of pain” (Inf.4.8).1 Notwithstanding the comprehensive nature of this representation of the Inferno, it has been difficult for scholars to assess its full intricacy due to the minute scale of the individual motifs. The original draw- ing measures 32.5 cm x 47.5 cm. The small figures in the original measure less than one centimeter. Reproductions are often smaller, compounding this difficulty. Most of the critical discussion has focused on the artist’s illustrations of the individual cantos. Kenneth Clark, Peter Brieger, Millard Meiss, and Charles Singleton have clarified the relationship of Botticelli’s illustrations to earlier and later manuscript I am indebted to Ricardo Padron, Tom Conley, and Ted