Italian poems interpreted: drawings after Dante and Tasso

 11th March – 14th May 2008  (to coincide with The Times Oxford Literary Festival)

Jacopo Ligozzi (1547-1626)
Dante watching the sunrise in the dark forest
(Inferno, I. 16-18)
Pen and brown wash, heightened with white bodycolour, on brown-tinted paper

Jacopo Ligozzi’s (1547 – 1626) drawings after scenes from Dante’s Divine Comedy belong to the most famous 16th century illustrations of this poem. Three of these extraordinary sheets depicting scenes from the Inferno are at Christ Church. Further Old Master drawings from our own collection, by Guercino and others, explain Torquato Tasso’s 16th century poem Gerusalemme Liberata.