Dante Alighieri - Divina Commedia di San Bernardo

The Divine Comedy by San Bernardo

The manuscript known as Codex 9 in Padua’s Seminario Maggiore Vescovile is a splendidly illuminated manuscript of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (ca. 1265 – 1321). The work was written and illuminated in the second half of the 14th century and contains a variety of fascinating miniatures. Among them are three outstandingly furnished title pages, 100+ drolleries, and four wonderfully-illustrated historiated initials in animal form.

The Primary Work of Italian Literature

Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy is undoubtedly the magnum opus of his creative talent. A gorgeously illuminated copy of the Divine Comedy originated in Italy in the second half of the 14th century containing sections of text by Jacopo Alighieri (1289–1348) and Bosone da Gubbio.

Rich Décor with Human and Animal Drolleries

Codex 9 artistically distinguishes itself through extremely rich décor with over 100 drolleries in human and animal form, among others. What’s more, the work contains three frontispieces introducing the three cantos. Each of these splendid pages is richly decorated and furnished with historiated initials on gold backgrounds, which impressively represent the treatment of the text. The initials are flanked by rich tendril works, in which a variety of human and animal drolleries frolic.

A Mysterious and Dubious Provenance

Where exactly the work originated and who its patron was remain unclear to this day. There are, however, clues indicating its patron was a certain Michellino della Stacciola, who was forced to cede the Marche region to Galeazzo Malatesta in 1372 as the result of a feud. Should this assumption be confirmed, then it can be inferred that the Codex 9 originated in the region of Umbria. Much remains unclear about the further history of the manuscript. A notice in the manuscript made it possible to figure out that the work was gifted to Alfonso Alvarotti by Andrea Citadella in 1717 before it was purchased by the librarian Francesco Canal in 1720 and became a part of the collections the Biblioteca del Seminario. The modern binding of the codex is no longer the original from the 14th century, but rather a 19th century binding.