Portrait of Dante (1265-1321)

About the time that Dante, as Prior of Florence, was sent to Rome on the embassy from which he never returned, Giotto was painting, in fresco, the Chapel of the palace of the Podesta of Florence, later called the Bargello, now the National Museum. On the entrance wall he painted the Inferno; on the east, or chancel wall, the Paradise; on the side wall, south, the story of Mary of Egypt; on the north side, the story of St. Nicholas of Bari.

Among the Saints in his Paradise Giotto introduced portraits of three living friends, placing Dante in front of his group of three-the other two (in dim outline behind him) being his master in art, Brunetto Latini, and Corso Donati, and artist friend.

Vasari says: "This was the first successful attempt at portraiture, after the revival of art." To the right of the chancel window, the three friends form part of a procession of the citizens of Florence, following a crowned youth, supposed to be Charles of Valois. In the same order, to the left of the chancel window, three figures are similarly grouped, one of which is supposed to be the great peasant-painter, Giotto himself.

This Chapel of the Podesta's palace, now Salon IV. of the National Museum, has undergone many vicissitudes since Dante was Prior of Florence and Giotto painted his portrait there. During the internecine wars the beautiful palace was divided into two stories-the upper one for a prison, the lower for a magazine. The frescoes were obliterated by a dirty whitewash. But peace brought the Renaissance, and the restoration of valuable works of art then commenced. The enthusiasm of the Florentines, when these portraits were recovered, knew no bounds. For weeks the Bargello was thronged with a continuous succession of visitors and pilgrims. The prominent position of Dante in the procession, as well as his youthful appearance, lead critics to fix the date of this portrait in the thirty-fifth year of his age, the very epoch at which he dates his Vision.

In the year 1300 Dante was Prior of the Republic of Florence; in February, 1302, he was exiled for political reasons, under penalty of death should he ever return to Florence, the city of his birth. An exile for nineteen years, Dante died in Ravenna September 14, 1321, in his fifty-seventh year. After his death the Florentines found they had exiled the greatest of Italians, and desired to do him great honor and to bury him in their cathedral, but the people of Ravenna refused to give him up. The Italians now worship his memory, and call him the "Divine Dante." In 1865 all Italy joined in celebrating the six-hundredth anniversary of his birth.

For Dante's Inferno, see C. Q., Vol. 1., page 287.