Domenico di Michelino
Piazza del Duomo Firenze
Entitled “La Commedia illumina Firenze” (“The Comedy Illuminates Florence”), this portrait of Dante in the Duomo has become an aesthetic icon. Though wrongly attributed to Orcagna for years, the work was actually painted by Domenico di Michelino.
Based on a lost drawing by Alesso Baldovinetti, the fresco shows Dante standing in front of depictions of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Domenico was paid 155 lire (now about 3500 euros or 4000 USD) and finished it in June of 1465, during the year of Dante's 200th birthday. The poet is here dressed in traditional garb that seems to have been influenced by his representation in the Bargello.
Dante stands with his masterpiece opened toward Florence. Above him is heaven, divided appropriately into spheres. Behind him is Purgatory, where you can easily make out Eden at its peak, the ring of fire of the lustful (into which Dante hopped after Virgil reminded him of Beatrice), the gatekeeper angel and numerous penitent souls wandering its terraces. The poet gestures, lastly, to Hell where all sorts of unpleasant things are happening behind the castle wall of Dis. Along the bottom border, we read:
Qui caelum cecinit, mediumque imumque tribunal, lustravitque animo cuncta poeta suo, doctus adest Dantes, sua quem Florentia saepe sensit consiliis ac pietate patrem. Nil potuit tanto mors sava nocere poeta quem vivum virtus, carmen, imago facit.
He who sang of Heaven, and of the regions twain, midway and in the abyss, where souls are judged, surveying all in spirit, he is here, Dante, our master-poet. Florence found oft-times in him a father, wise and strong in his devotion. Death could bring no harm to such a bard. For him true life have gained his worth, his verse and this his effigy. (trans. by Edward Plumptre)
The fresco you see here was actually the replacement of an earlier one whose history tells us a lot about what Domenico must have had in mind. The original painting was commisioned about 30 or 40 years before by one of the Conventual Franciscans who wanted a portrait of Dante to be placed in Santa Maria del Fiore so that the citizens of Florence would never forget him, especially considering that the great poet's remains were still in Ravenna. It was accompanied by 13 poetic verses that were transcribed by Bartolommeo Ceffoni who attended the Dante lectures here in 1430:
La mano
Onorate l’altissimo poeta
ch’è nostro, e tiellosi Ravenna,
perché di lui non è chi n’abbia pieta
Dante
Se l’alto posse che dispone tutto,
Fiorenza, volse che ti fosse luce,
perché tua crazia in ver’ di me non luce,
che del tuo ventre so’ maturo frutto?
Il vecchio
O lasso vecchio, o me, quanto è chupito
la tua virtù sì alta, esser famata,
per dengnio sengnio nel fiorente sito,
ché or da’ cieli vegho nunziata
mia giusta vollia en cielo redimito,
ch’ancora in marmo la farà traslata.
The Hand
Honor the revered poet
who is ours, though Ravenna keeps him,
since there is no one who takes pity on him.
Dante
If the Almighty Who orders all things,
desired that you be illuminated, Florence,
why does your behavior toward me not shine,
for I am the mature fruit of your womb?
The Old Man
O woe is me, an old man. How we have longed
for your great virtue to attain fame and be commemorated
by a worthy monument in this flowering place.
Now I see that my just desire has been sanctioned
by the heavenly Crown, for soon in marble
will your virtue be memorialized.
Despite its dubious literary qualities, this little poetic ‘voiceover’ helped the viewer understand what its painting was supposed to illustrate: Dante is great and Florence should immortalize him in marble. The lack of such a monument weighed heavily on Florentine citizens for several hundred years and is partially responsible for the proliferation of statues in the 1800s.