John Dickson Batten: illustrations for Dante's Inferno

Abstract

"The forty-five illustrations for Dante’s Inferno by John Dickson Batten (1860-1932) are perhaps the greatest achievement of an undeservedly forgotten artist. They were commissioned in the 1890s by George Musgrave (1855-1932) to accompany the second edition of his idiosyncratic translation of the Inferno, which finally appeared in 1933, a year after the deaths of both men. Musgrave left the illustrations to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where they hung for many years on the walls of what is still known as Hell Passage. More recently they have remained hidden away in the college library, unknown even to art historians and Dante scholars. This volume, published as part of the celebrations to mark the 700th anniversary of Dante's death, aims to give a broader public than ever before the chance to enjoy both Batten's imaginative originality and his ability to create arresting visual realisations of scenes and events described in Dante's great poem."-- On back of cover.

Contents

Dawn -- The leopard -- The three beasts -- Beatrice -- The doorway to Hell -- The vestibule -- Charon -- Limbo -- Dante and the poets -- Minos -- The lustful -- Paolo and Francesca -- Cerberus -- Pluto -- The avaricious and prodigals -- The styx -- Devils at the gates of Dis -- The heavenly messenger -- Farinata -- The minotaur -- The centaurs -- Dante on the back of Nessus -- The wood of the suicides -- Phlegethon -- Brunetto Latini -- The usurers -- Geryon -- The panders and seducers -- The Simoniacs -- The soothsayers -- Virgil and the devils -- Devils in the pitch -- Caiaphas and the hypocrites -- Climbing out of the sixth bolgia -- The thieves -- Ulysses and Diomedes -- The sowers of discord -- Leaving the Eighth Circle -- The giants -- Antaeus -- Ruggieri and Ugolino -- Satan -- Satan's view of Hell -- Leaving Satan -- Emerging to see the start -- Appendix: Edmund Hort New, Dante's Hell -- Edmund Hort New, Dante's World -- Frederic, Lord Leighton, portrait of Dante.