Cecco Bonanotte

The Inferno of The Divine Comedy illustrated by the plates by the contemporary artist.

The volume presents the full text of the Inferno of The Divine Comedy, beautifully illustrated by Cecco Bonanotte's plates. These illustrations are created in a sophisticated mixed technique that simultaneously exploits the tools of printing and those of drawing.

The extraordinary illustrations that accompany Dante's trip through Hell are awash with compositional and spatial solutions. The artist prioritises the sense of verticality evinced by means of an accelerated movement towards the abysses and the depths of the earth. The skilful, virtuous use of pencil, graphite, and charcoal along with rare blood-red accents underpin an incisive, lacerated, nervous sign-based language.

The exceptionally high quality of the drawing through which Bonanotte achieves the darkest, deepest blacks and the blinding transparencies of a dayless light is associated with a potent vision of the space. This vision is lacerated by force lines, beams of light, and incision-like marks that break up the whole and recompose it in a new order.