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Sandro Botticelli's Drawings: Dante's Inferno with Federica Pellazza

Sandro Botticelli's Drawings: Dante's Inferno with Federica Pellazza


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Can't make this time? A video recording will be sent to all participants after the seminar.

In this conversation, we will study a curated selection of Sandro Botticelli’s drawings for Dante’s Inferno. We'll explore an array of masterpieces from a corpus of 92 drawings commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici and released between the mid-1480s to the mid-1490s.

We'll learn that the intended output was supposed to be an illustrated codex including all three parts of Dante’s Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Unfortunately, Sandro Botticelli never managed to finish the whole project due to its rather overambitious goal: for this reason, most of the drawings are not fully fixed in pen.

In this seminar, we’ll focus exclusively on the drawings for the first part of the Divine Comedy, 'Inferno'. After a brief description of the historical context, we’ll be diving through the infernal circles and meeting some of the most famous damned of Dante’s time. We'll have a glimpse into their punishments as we analyze the various sophisticated artistic techniques by Sandro Botticelli.

The relevance of this work is not only in the excellent rendering of Inferno’s events by one of the most celebrated genius of the Renaissance, but it lies in the ability to channel together poetry, drawings, and social critic under a vivid human perspective.

Led by an expert on Florence Art History, Federica Pellazza, this interactive seminar will explore these extraordinary drawings under the lenses of art, society, and history. Designed to inform curiosity as well as future travels, participants will come away with increased knowledge about Dante, Botticelli, and their brilliant legacy to the Florentine culture of their times and to the global culture nowadays.

Federica Pellazza is an Italian architect/interior designer based in Amsterdam. After graduating in Architecture at the University of Florence, in 2012 she attended a Master Course in Interior Design at Scuola Politecnica del Design in Milan. She moved to Amsterdam in 2015 where she lives and works as a freelance designer, collaborating with multiple local firms & developing her independent design research. Her walks are marked by a 'contemporary renaissance' approach: she loves to transcend cultural boundaries between disciplines, sharing new perspectives between art, design & architecture.

This conversation is suitable for all ages.

90 minutes, including a 30 minute Q&A.

Customer Reviews

Based on 15 reviews
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(15)
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G
G.D. (New Rochelle, US)

I have been reading Dante's Inferno. Federica's seminar and her accompanying visuals added greatly to my understanding of Dante and Virgil's journey through Hell.

C
C. (Maisons-Laffitte, FR)
Excellent seminar !

I'd known the drawings existed, and had even seen some in an exhibition. But Federica really made the drawings come to life in an interesting way. I'm looking forward to the next session on the Purgatorio drawings.

A
A.H. (Stockton-on-Tees, GB)

Excellent, well informed, structured, and illustrated lecture which conveyed, contextually, the dynamic cinemagraphic nature of Botticelli's drawings and paintings.

C
C.G. (New York, US)
Fantastico

A brilliant comprehensive understanding of Dante’s canto as interpreted by Botticelli’s drawings.

E
E. (South Jordan, US)
Dante's Inferno via Botticelli's drawings

This was an excellent presentation with lots of detail and background about Botticelli and each of the layers of the Inferno's passages. Great focus on individual elements in a drawing. Amazing really.

Customer Reviews

Based on 15 reviews
100%
(15)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
G
G.D. (New Rochelle, US)

I have been reading Dante's Inferno. Federica's seminar and her accompanying visuals added greatly to my understanding of Dante and Virgil's journey through Hell.

C
C. (Maisons-Laffitte, FR)
Excellent seminar !

I'd known the drawings existed, and had even seen some in an exhibition. But Federica really made the drawings come to life in an interesting way. I'm looking forward to the next session on the Purgatorio drawings.

A
A.H. (Stockton-on-Tees, GB)

Excellent, well informed, structured, and illustrated lecture which conveyed, contextually, the dynamic cinemagraphic nature of Botticelli's drawings and paintings.

C
C.G. (New York, US)
Fantastico

A brilliant comprehensive understanding of Dante’s canto as interpreted by Botticelli’s drawings.

E
E. (South Jordan, US)
Dante's Inferno via Botticelli's drawings

This was an excellent presentation with lots of detail and background about Botticelli and each of the layers of the Inferno's passages. Great focus on individual elements in a drawing. Amazing really.