Michelangelo Caetani’s Six Topographic Maps of the Divine Comedy

As a follow up to the latest post on Norman Bel Geddes’s stage set design for Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, here we feature the six maps drawn by Michelangelo Caetani in a book titled La materia della Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri dichiarata in VI tavole, Roma (1855).

A duke and a politician, Caetani was well versed in drawing and fine arts and as a respected intellectual, his house in Rome was a meeting place for international scholars. As Dante’s scholar, he published relevant interpretative works on the trecento author and designed six topographic maps in multiple colours to be used by students of the Divine Comedy.

All images are in Public Domain. Collection: Cornell University Library, Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections: Persuasive Cartography: The PJ Mode Collection.