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The masterpiece of the Florentine poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), The Divine Comedy was the most widely illuminated book of medieval literature, embraced as a subject for manuscript illumination within a decade of the author's death. Conceived as an epic poem in three parts - Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise) - which are in turn subdivided into short sections called cantos, the Comedy is Dante's personal account of a vision that he had during Holy Week in the year 1300.
The codex in New Haven is one of the finest examples of early Divine Comedy manuscripts to have survived, its remarkable state of preservation allowing full appreciation of the brilliant decoration and regular, harmonious writing. Conforming to an early type of Divine Comedy illustration, the illuminations are confined to the first page of each book, rather than to the whole text, as in later.
The last illuminated page is folio 54r, containing a large letter L to illustrate the beginning of the first canto of the Paradiso ("La gloria di colui che tutto muove" [The glory of him who moves all things]). Within the initial stands a third nimbed figure with green wings, wearing a white cape lined with green and orange and a blue dress, on which is emblazoned a head surrounded by golden rays. She is holding burning flames in both hands, while above her head floats a blue disk studded with stars, among which is visible a small crescent-shaped moon. The identity of this figure is less easily ascertained than in the previous two initials in the codex. It can be identified most probably as Divine Love.
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