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Mistica del Paradiso al limite del non rappresentabile. Par. XXX: word-painting dantesco e disegno Botticelliano – Analisi di un intercambio mediale

2012; Swervei de publicacions; Volume: 17; Linguagem: Inglês

10.5565/rev/qdi.325

2014-8828

Cornelia Klettke,

Early Modern Spanish Literature

This article addresses the problem of the medial shift between Dante's word paintings and Botticelli's drawings. A detailed comparison of Par. XXX with Botticelli's drawing for this canto is the basis for a first approach to a system of correspondences which Botticelli created for his pictorial transposition of the poetic text. The analysis of the details and arrangements of the depicted shapes reveals the degree of sensitiveness with which Botticelli delves into the religious and spiritual world of the canto as well as into its poetics. The artist transposes the intention of a whole section of Par. XXX (the first vision: flow of light and "mirabil primavera", v. 67-78) by referring closely to textual details. In the course of this, he displaces the supernatural imagery of the Dantean verses by means of an arbitrary divergence. This intermedial difference arises from putting the symbolic expression of "faville vive" (= living sparks), which Botticelli permutes into angels – angels with cloaks covered in flames and angels with halos – into form. Here, the hermeticism of Dante's text appears transposed into the ambigram of a seemingly mysterious labyrinth of shapes. In Dante's work, gemstones and their metaphysics of light play a prominent role in the symbolization of the mysticism of paradise. In Botticelli's permutation of the gemstones into angelic figures, this mysticism does not reflect the Dantean majesty. Although Botticelli is able to express a certain preciosity in his shapes by his masterly handling of his pencil, this presentation does not completely equal Dante's preciosity, which is created in a two-fold way by the gemstones and can be described both allegorically as well as rhetorically. Nevertheless and despite several differences, owing to the subtle reception of the Dantean poetics, Botticelli's drawing for Canto XXX of Paradiso presents an exceedingly well realized transposition of the mystic dimension of an internalized view of transcendence.