These illuminations for Dante’s poem undertaken by Botticelli during his years of public acclaim were a private endeavor. Ironically, they would be hidden away for many years afterward.

Luzzi has an eye for the roller-coaster ride of literary trends and shifts in taste. In the mid-18th century, for instance, Voltaire could proclaim the unthinkable: “Nobody reads Dante anymore.” Luzzi ...

Dante would prende ‘l cappelo, or seize the poet’s crown, but only after exile from Florence would make him macro, or lean. Mr. Luzzi is a fair appraiser of Botticelli’s achievement, observing his ...

The fact that you may not have seen Botticelli’s Dante drawings, Joseph Luzzi writes in “Botticelli’s Secret: The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance,” is the result of a ...

One of Sandro Botticelli’s illustrations to ‘The Divine Comedy’ by Dante Alighieri. Photo: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images ...

Publications and exhibitions abound this year honouring Dante, the poet and author of the epic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, on the 700th anniversary of his death. In Visions of Heaven: Dante ...

Botticelli's paintings still fascinate people more than 500 years after his death. But the artist also had a dark side. He painted and drew hell as described by the poet Dante. The work was ...

For him Botticelli also executed the Dante illustrations, now preserved at Berlin. This relation of patron and artist lasted some twenty years, evoking Sandro’s most precious and characteristic ...

Sandro Botticelli, “Beatrice explains to Dante the order of the cosmos (Divine Comedy, Paradiso II)” (circa 1481–1495), pen and brown ink over metal pen on parchment, 32.4 x 47.4 cm ...