Giotto’s Dante

In 1290, the Bargello became the Palazzo del Podestà (a lot like the town hall), and it was at about this time that Giotto (or one of his students?) painted the likeness of Dante upstairs in the Magdalen Chapel. Antonio Pucci and Giorgio Vasari both wrote about having seen the portrait, but the room was later whitewashed completely and it was hidden. Memories of its existence persisted, however, as it was unanimously considered the earliest, and most accurate, depiction of Dante.

The idea of its possible recovery fascinated a variety of men with money and contacts who competed (in reality and in the newspapers) to save it. Versions of what happened not infrequently contradict one another. On one side, Washington Irving claimed that it had been discovered by a man named Richard Henry Wilde, an Irish immigrant to the United States who became very wealthy and then decided to pursue his artistic interests in an early retirement. On the other, Gabriele Rossetti asserted that it was an English nobleman named Seymour Kirkup (to whom we also owe the Dante mask in Palazzo Vecchio).

In the ultimate analysis, both Wilde and Kirkup spread money around at the suggestion of an artist named Aubrey Bezzi who, very unfortunately, hired Antonio Marini to save this priceless gem. While all of these men were claiming the glory of this or that aspect of this literary conquest, Marini discovered a large nail emerging from just beneath Dante’s left eye.

Below: Seymour Kirkup’s tracing of the fresco before its ‘restoration.’ You can see clearly where the nail once protruded from the wall.

Instead of cutting the nail, he pulled it out and, with it, much of the rest of Dante’s face, as you can clearly see in a before-after comparison. Although the scandal was immense, the unveiling of the restoration was a great success. Hundreds of people attended and wrote poems commemorating the event. Many art historians are skeptical that Marini’s damage can ever be corrected and others argue convincingly that Giotto couldn’t have actually painted it in the first place anyway.

Dante’s readers will recognize his image with little difficulty. Vasari claims that Guido Cavalcanti and Brunetto Latini are likewise immortalized in this painting, but most scholars do not agree. Others think Dante is flanked by Brunetto and Corso Donati.