Manfredo Manfredini Manfredo Manfredini - Divina Commedia - Inferno, Canto V, 1907
pencil, ink and watercolor on thin cardboard
50 x 67 cm
Original illustration made by Manfredini between 1904 and 1907 for his famous edition of "The Divine Comedy, " published by Nerbini in 1908. Pinholes, slight creases, and small tears in the margins. Signed. Born in Ferrara in 1881, Manfredini moved to Florence in 1904, the year in which the publisher Giuseppe Nerbini commissioned a new edition of the Divine Comedy, asking him to illustrate the poem's one hundred cantos. During the feverish and excited performance of this laborious work, Manfredini became madly infatuated with the Ukrainian opera singer Solomija Krusel'nyc'ka. His unrequited love drove him to madness and to several violent episodes that resulted in numerous arrests. In April 1907, he was arrested after being found in possession of a pistol and a bottle of vitriol (probably intended for the Ukrainian soprano). He was then admitted to the Mombello asylum in Brianza, where, after a forty-day ordeal, Manfredini officially died of a serious form of pulmonary tuberculosis. His work remained unfinished, stopping at Canto 30 of Purgatory, and Nerbini then decided to entrust the remaining panels to the Neapolitan Tancredi Scarpelli.
Dimensions
50 x 67 cm
pencil, ink and watercolor on thin cardboard
50 x 67 cm
Original illustration made by Manfredini between 1904 and 1907 for his famous edition of "The Divine Comedy, " published by Nerbini in 1908. Pinholes, slight creases, and small tears in the margins. Signed. Born in Ferrara in 1881, Manfredini moved to Florence in 1904, the year in which the publisher Giuseppe Nerbini commissioned a new edition of the Divine Comedy, asking him to illustrate the poem's one hundred cantos. During the feverish and excited performance of this laborious work, Manfredini became madly infatuated with the Ukrainian opera singer Solomija Krusel'nyc'ka. His unrequited love drove him to madness and to several violent episodes that resulted in numerous arrests. In April 1907, he was arrested after being found in possession of a pistol and a bottle of vitriol (probably intended for the Ukrainian soprano). He was then admitted to the Mombello asylum in Brianza, where, after a forty-day ordeal, Manfredini officially died of a serious form of pulmonary tuberculosis. His work remained unfinished, stopping at Canto 30 of Purgatory, and Nerbini then decided to entrust the remaining panels to the Neapolitan Tancredi Scarpelli.
Dimensions
50 x 67 cm
