# Inferno, from the Divine Comedy by Dante \(Folio 3v\) [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [BARTOLOMEO DI FRUOSINO]() - Date: 1401-1450 - Technique: Manuscript \(Ms. it. 74\), 365 x 265 mm ## Commentary Inferno, from the Divine Comedy by Dante \(Folio 3v\) 1430-35 Manuscript \(Ms. it. 74\), 365 x 265 mm Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris The codex in Paris contains the text of the Inferno, the first of three books of the Divine Comedy, the masterpiece of the Florentine poet Dante Alighieri \(1265-1321\). Canto 1 begins on folio 3r with a portrait of Dante in his study in a foliate and gilt initial N \("Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita" \[In the middle of the journey of our life\]\). Surrounded by manuscripts, the poet sits at a slant-top desk, holding pen and scraper and writing in a bound volume before him, like a medieval figure of an Evangelist or Father of the Church. The borders of the page, alive with birds, climbing roses, a putto chasing a butterfly, and golden sheaves of wheat, are decorated with seven lozenges containing classicising personifications of the seven Liberal Arts, with their chief protagonists seated at their feet. Each of the thirty-two remaining cantos is preceded by a square or rectangular scene with an often graphically detailed vision of Hell described in the text that follows. ## Related artworks - [Antiphonary \(Cod. B, folio 148\)]() - [Desco da parto \(recto\)]() - [Desco da parto \(verso\)]() - [Inferno, from the Divine Comedy by Dante \(Folio 1v\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()