Word and Image in Alfonso d’Aragona’s Manuscript Edition of the «Divina Commedia»

The majority of studies undertaken on the illuminated manuscripts of Dante’s «Divine Comedy» have been of a historical nature, with emphasis on the authorship of the illustrations and the historical background of the creation of the manuscript. Although very relevant, these studies do not explain how the images and words interact in the aesthetic experience of the reader and in the analysis of the poem. This work investigates whether an evaluation based on both the images and verbal text of the «Comedy» could be more rigorous and comprehensive than one based on words alone, such as that found in a critical edition with commentary. The analysis presented here is grounded in the dominant theories of manuscript illumination of the late Middle Ages and in the phenomenology of the aesthetic experience, especially in relation to Jacques Maritain’s and Umberto Eco’s theories of art and scholasticism.