Cecco Bonanotte

An artists choosing to engage with Dante Alighieri by illustrating The Divine Comedy is not only a sign of great courage and audacity, or the desire to carry on the tradition introduced by the Renaissance masters. Above all, it stems from an awareness that the Comedy is an unceasing source of reflection and inspiration, as only great literary works can be. Each new period, each historical and cultural context, is attentive to, rereads and interprets past sources, coming up with new readings and discovering novel, more or less valid and concrete exegetical keys, by acknowledging that the past can be productive and influence the present. Hence, what is important in this respect is the reflection that a contemporary artist like Cecco Bonanotte, with a profound knowledge and love for Italian culture, but also that of the Orient, offers us on a central chapter of our literary, linguistic, religious and artistic history. The execution of the plates revolves around guiding colours: black and red for Hell; grey and silver for Purgatory; cream and gold for Paradise. The complete text of The Divine Comedy is illustrated with 103 plates created by the artist using mixed media, pictorial interventions executed below the printed cantos and at the end of Purgatory and Paradise, and reliefs on the covers of the three canticas. The volume is complemented by texts by Micol Forti, which introduce each of the three parts, and others by Anna Maria Petrioli Tofani, Antonio Paolucci and Marzia Faietti.