La Divina Comedia di Dante Alighieri illustrated by John Flaxman and Tommaso Piroli (1793, 1802). Dante in the book market between the 18th and 19th centuries

Abstract

In 1792, in Rome, the Dutch collector Thomas Hope commissioned the first exclusively illustrated edition of the Divine Comedy to the English artist John Flaxman. The first publication, limited and for private circulation, was distributed by the engraver Tommaso Piroli’s workshop in July 1793, and Hope, holder of the rights, forbade the printing of further copies. However, in 1802, Piroli repurposed the engravings from Flaxman’s illustrations for a new edition which was distributed throughout Europe, immensly successful as evidenced by the editions of the Comedy in the first 19th century in which they were included. The collaboration between Flaxman and Piroli, their relationship with Hope and the history of this illustrated Comedia, born from a rigorous neoclassical theory on the relationship between poetry and art, establish themselves as a living testimony of Dante’s reception between the 18th and 19th centuries through a study of the dynamics in book market.