Dante in the Italian Renaissance of Art

Much of Renaissance art reflects a Dantesque worldview. Addressed here is Dante’s link to early trecento art; to burgeoning pious art patronage resulting from Purgatorio’s salvific promise; to rising individualism resulting in growing civic identity, the cult of artistic fame, the art of portraiture, and biography as an early art historical methodology; and to an enduring fascination with antiquity, all made palatable and patriotic for later generations by glosses widely known in Commedia incunabula.