As a follow up to the latest post on Norman Bel Geddes’s stage set design for Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, here we feature the six maps drawn by Michelangelo Caetani in a book titled La materia della Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri dichiarata in VI tavole, Roma (1855).

A duke and a politician, Caetani was well versed in drawing and fine arts and as a respected intellectual, his house in Rome was a meeting place for international scholars. As Dante’s scholar, he published relevant interpretative works on the trecento author and designed six topographic maps in multiple colours to be used by students of the Divine Comedy.

Michelangelo Caetani, The Divine Comedy Described in Six Plates 1855. Cover
Overview of the Divine Comedy, 1855(Plate I)
The Ordering of Hell, 1855 (Plate II)
Map of Hell and Dante’s itinerary, 1855 (Plate III)
Cross Section of Hell, 1855 (Plate IV
The Ordering of Paradise, 1855 (Plate VI)

All images are in Public Domain. Collection: Cornell University Library, Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections: Persuasive Cartography: The PJ Mode Collection.

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