By Arnesia Young on January 16, 2021
Frederico Zucarri's Illustration of Canto XXXI-XXXII from Dante's ‘Inferno' (Photo: Helvio ricina, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
This year marks the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death in 1321. The Italian poet and philosopher is the well-known author of
The Divine Comedy—a three-part epic poem describing his journey through hell, purgatory, and finally, paradise. To recognize this significant milestone, the Uffizi Gallery is displaying a collection of rarely exhibited drawings by 16th-century Renaissance artist Frederico Zuccari, which illustrate scenes from Dante’s age-old chronicle.
“Until now these beautiful drawings have only been seen by a few scholars and displayed to the public only twice, and only in part,” says the Uffizi’s director, Eike Schmidt. “Now they are published in full, alongside a didactic-scientific comment, where from [January 1] they will be freely available.”