Looking for Dante: Exploring the Divine Comedy in Print from the 15th Century to Today

Looking for Dante: Exploring the Divine Comedy in Print from the 15th Century to Today

By Dr Rebeca Bowen (Postdoctoral Research Associate, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages)

When we pick up a book, we often forget that as well as reading a text we are looking at an object. Unlike the relative intangibility of words, which dwell in our minds and memories as well as on the page, screen, or writing surface before us, books are things — they have a physical presence in the world and a material history to go along with it. Some books call out to be seen, maximising their visual appeal with images or interesting layouts. This is certainly the case for early printed editions of Dante’s medieval masterwork, the Commedia, which demonstrate innovative visual traditions shaped by the new technologies that (re)produced them. These historical books, many of them experimental in their page layout and decoration, have been the subject of a new artistic-academic collaboration based at the Taylor Institution Library between researchers from the sub-faculty of Italian—Rebecca Bowen and Simon Gilson—and the artist and printmaker Wuon-Gean Ho.

1564 Sessa (ARCH.FOT.IT.1564 (1-3))

Spanning the first 150 years of printing, from the experiments of the late 1400s to the elaborate designs of the sixteenth century, the Taylorian collection of early printed editions of Dante’s Commedia is astonishing. These books reflect the major developments in publishing fiction in early modern Italy, representing different formats (from monumental folios [ARCH.FOL.IT.1477] to tiny octavos [ARCH.8o.IT.1502] no bigger than the palm of a reader’s hand). They demonstrate different critical approaches to the text (including extensive commentaries [ARCH.FOL.IT.1564], visual apparatuses like maps and diagrams [ARCH.8o.IT.1506], or minimal paratextual notes [101.C.11]). These books also tell stories about the history of the Taylor Institution, from its founding in 1847; through the rare book purchasing policies that operated from the 1870s to the 1890s; and the important donations of the twentieth century, including from Dante scholar and editor of the Commedia, Edward Moore, whose books were placed on indefinite loan to the Taylor Institution by Queen’s College in 1939.  

The Artist Wuon-Gean Ho working at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press, Oxford March 2024.

Seeking to examine these historical editions in more detail and to explore the meanings they can still hold for us today, the ‘Looking for Dante’ collaboration unfolded through a series of encounters in libraries and archives around Oxford. Artist-printmaker Wuon-Gean Ho, who trained in woodblock printing in Japan and currently works in relief printmaking processes, enjoyed engaging with the craftmanship of these ancient books. She writes: “I was thrilled to turn the crisp pages, to feel the embossed traces of ink on paper. I marvelled at the woodcuts and spent time using drawing as a way of translating the motives behind the creation of the iconography.” Responding to Dante’s poem through this early print tradition, Wuon-Gean developed a unique perspective on the Commedia and its presence in Oxford. The print series, exhibition, and catalogue ‘Looking for Dante: Exploring the Divine Comedy in Print from the 15th Century to Today’ is the result of this knowledge exchange.

Dante - BodLib Press (2024) by Wuon-Gean Ho. Linocut and Monoprint, 15 x 20cm

An embodied response to Dante’s poem as well as to the books and libraries that conserve it, Wuon-Gean’s new series of prints immerses us in her experience as a reader. By placing herself in her own images—similar to the way in which Dante places himself as a character in his own poem—Wuon-Gean guides us through a multi-layered, vision of the text. Moving from the imagined spaces of Dante’s poem through the landscapes of the early modern woodblock illustrations into the physical spaces of the Taylor Library and the printshop that still operates today in the Old Bodleian, where Wuon-Gean inked and printed many of the images, the series offers a contemporary reading of Dante’s poem through the historical books that were best-sellers in the first decades of print.

In the above print Bodbib Press (set in the Bodleian historical printshop), the iconic silhouette of the Radcliffe Camera looms through the widow that illuminates Francesco Marcolini’s 1544 edition of Dante’s Commedia, which lies on the bench to the left of the printer at work. The recognisable, circular images in Marcolini’s edition encourage a ‘scientific’ bird’s eye view of the Inferno, recollected in Wuon-Gean’s print through the geometric outlines visible on the pages open in the foreground.

Marcolini, Commedia, 1544 (ARCH.80.IT.1544 (1))

Reflecting elements of the historical woodcuts, some of the ‘Looking for Dante’ prints transpose key themes from the Commedia into images that question the relevance of Dante’s vision in the context of contemporary life. The print It Spills from the Screen echoes the tangle of limbs in the Marcolini woodcuts but transforms the bird’s eye view into the modern medium of the mobile phone, which becomes a page-like window through which images of human suffering pour out into the world. Bursting with the anguish of modern conflict, this print questions the role of analogue and digital technologies in the dissemination of depictions of distress.

Dante - It Spills from the Screen (2024) by Wuon-Gean Ho. Linocut and Monoprint, 20 x 15cm

Emerging from the darkness of Inferno, Wuon-Gean’s prints also reflect on the possibility of redemption and personal growth, a powerful red-thread throughout Dante’s otherworldly journey. When Dante reaches the top of the mountain of Purgatory, before he can begin his ascent into Paradise, he encounters the woman he loved on earth, Beatrice, and is forced to go through a process of anagnorisis, or self-examination. Looking down into a stream that divides him from his beloved, Dante cannot bear to gaze at his own reflection:

     Li occhi mi cadder giù nel chiaro fonte;

ma veggendomi in esso, i trassi a l’erba,

tanta vergogna mi gravò la fronte’

(My gaze fell down to the clear fount, but seeing myself reflected, I wrenched my eyes back to the grassy bank, so much shame heavied my forehead)

Purgatorio 30.76–78

Fractured and re-composed as an encounter between the artist-as-researcher and the object of research (a fantastical semi-self-portrait in the guise of Beatrice—recognisable by the letter ‘B’, which labels the figure left of centre in the lower foreground), the print Seeking Immortality offers an intimate portrayal of intellectual inquiry. Set in the recognisable space of the Taylor Library’s Main Reading Room, this meeting occurs not in the reflection of a stream but through the mirror of the library desk. Mediated by the magnifying glass that she holds to her face, the inquisitive eye of the artist merges with the mind’s eye of the reader as a slippage takes place between the viewer and the book. Through Wuon-Gean’s vision of Dante’s protagonist, we are immersed in the artist’s reflection on the text.

Dante - Seeking Immortality (2024) by Wuon-Gean Ho. Linocut and Monoprint, 20 x 15cm.

Generations of readers have encountered Dante’s poem in the well-lit rooms of the Taylor Institution. For many, their studies will have led them to call up and examine the historical books consulted in this collaboration. From June 14th until July 10th 2024, these books were on display in the Voltaire Room alongside Wuon-Gean’s prints, setting up a conversation between the two sets of works on paper. Reflecting on the show, Wuon-Gean writes that: “perhaps the most striking juxtaposition was between the print Touch In – In Touch and the pages of Francesco Marcolini’s 1544 edition of the Commedia, which was opened to an image of Dante and Virgil from the end of Purgatory, when Dante is embraced by Virgil in anticipation of entering the next chapter. Touch In – In Touch takes this ambiguous gesture of closeness between Dante and Virgil and places them inside an egg-like structure hovering off the surface of the page, commenting on how the past is fragile but tangible”.

Dante - Touch In / In Touch (2024) by Wuon-Gean Ho

Linocut and Monoprint, 20 x 15cm

Marcolini, Commedia, 1544 (ARCH.8O.IT.1544 (1))

The ten prints made for the project have entered the Taylorian collection and can be consulted along with other library materials. They were printed by hand with jet black ink on archival cotton paper using technology that closely resembles that which would have been used in the making of the original books. An exhibition catalogue, which shows all ten prints accompanied with selected texts from the Commedia and commentary from Wuon-Gean and her academic collaborators, Rebecca Bowen and Simon Gilson is available online at this link.

This project was funded by a TORCH Knowledge Exchange Innovation Fund Award. It is part of the AHRC Project ‘Envisioning Dante, c. 1472-c. 1630: Seeing and Reading the Early Printed Page’, led by Professor Guyda Armstrong at the University of Manchester and Professor Simon Gilson at the University of Oxford. The grant holders would like to thank Richard Lawrence and Alexandra Franklin at the Bodleian, and the staff at the Taylor Institution Library, especially Emma Huber, Andrea Del Cornò and Joanne Ferrari.