By Alexander ChristofiD ante, Petrarch and Boccaccio were, it’s fair to say, probably the most interesting thing to come out of medieval Italy. The reason that they were given the nickname Le Tre Corone is because they were at the head of a newfound interest in literature, love, and people themselves. Dante’s Commedia remains one of the greatest religious and political poems since classical times, and die-hard fans even call it ‘the fifth gospel’. Petrarch was one of the first people to address humanist issues (some of his more enthusiastic followers claim he started the Renaissance) whilst Boccaccio wrote stories about sex. But they were very good stories about sex, and there were a hundred of them. In many ways, then, the Three Crowns are a big deal.
However, it’s not just a celebration of how good these writers were. The exhibition looks at their influence on later generations and how it developed, and gives some insight into how their works were interpreted. Though there are some displays of early annotated texts, the emphasis is strongly on visual representations and illustrations, from the early 15th century to the modern day.
In the early years, the most popular of the three authors was undoubtedly Petrarch. The illustrations in the early editions are interesting in themselves, and interpreting them is almost as rich as interpreting the texts. They show us how the poems were seen through the eyes of the time. An early edition of Petrarch’s Trionfi (Venice 1470-80) depicts Petrarch sitting with his forever unrequited love, Laura, on a riverbank – an interesting image, since Petrarch never spoke to Laura during her lifetime. Opposite is a meeting of nine philosophers, presumably highlighting Petrarch’s less romantic side. To see the two next to each other, though, is to give a colour illustration of the poet’s incongruous aspirations. In other editions, cameos of Petrarch introduce the first sonnet of the Canzoniere (‘Book of Poems’ to you and I). In an edition from 1450-75 (Ferrara), the first page is framed by another cameo, of Laura, and a small picture of a locked book. You feel like an intruder as if you are opening somebody else’s diary, and gazing at their deep and well-rhymed secrets. It captures perfectly the intimacy of the poems.
The comedy vote, however, must go to the edition which depicts Petrarch being crowned in the top left, women gossiping in the bottom left, and a man who appears to be beating his dog with a stick in the bottom right.
The earliest Dante in the collection is historically, if not altogether visually, interesting. The illustrator, possibly semi-illiterate, has misread the bit where Dante mentions an eagle on a banner, and has drawn a knight holding an eagle in the middle of the picture. There are some incredibly rare editions of the Commedia, though, which are fascinating. The Bodleian holds the first edition in which the Comedy becomes The Divine Comedy (1555 Venice), printed by Lodovico Dolce. The important Florence 1481 edition is also there, opened to the page where Dante meets Virgil and escapes the forest and some animals. The picture here is one of the best, contorting reality to suit its purposes. The canopy is only just over Dante’s head, the path obstructed by the crowding animals, and the trees around the edge of the picture are even smaller, giving a real feeling of claustrophobia.
There are a couple more editions of Petrarch, and the poet’s own heavily annotated copy of Suetonis, which is nifty because you can see what his handwriting looked like- very neat as it happens. The last we see of Petrarch is a 1503 text where an angry Catholic has tried to burn out the three anti-papal sonnets in the Canzoniere, proving that people did once care about poetry.
The section on Boccaccio is smaller than the other two, but more visually rich. There are late 15th century editions from France and Italy, some of them intricate volumes for a courtly audience – they are beautifully and minutely detailed, gilded and colourful. In a French edition of Filostrato (France 1480), a man with absurdly pointy feet is kissing a woman with almost vital energy. It’s not the Karma Sutra, but after seeing the stern illustrations of the other two Crowns, you can see that Boccaccio took a massive step towards the sort of humanism that we take for granted.
For those not so interested in old-fashioned images, the Bodleian has a few interesting modern illustrations. In the last two hundred years, Petrarch and Boccaccio have fallen out of favour with the reading public, but if anything, interest in Dante has boomed. As well as Tom Phillips’ brilliant original illustrations for his Inferno (including King Kong, comic book frames and an arse trumpet), there is a picture of Dante eulogizing the fall of Humpty Dumpty, and even a slightly odd link to our own glorious university – a picture of Dante hulking austerely over a fat little Oxford don.
The Three Crowns Grace The Bodleian
