The Divine Comedy Illuminated

In the Divine Comedy, Dante travels through Hell and Purgatory in his quest for Paradise where Beatrice awaits him. An adept of “the Faithful of Love”, he chooses this journey because of love, which leads him to the summit of himself and the highest degrees of initiation.  And it is a woman, the symbol of man’s soul, who guides him on this voyage that leads to salvation and grace.

In this way, Dante is lead by his beloved towards union with his source, the Divine.

And whether you regard images as natural or artificial, tangible or conceptual reflections of reality, they are nevertheless powerful tools for gaining knowledge. With this in mind, Jean-Luc Leguay’s Illuminated Manuscript of Dante’s Divine Comedy, is a veritable aid in meditation, able to help us through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. It takes us into the deepest part of ourselves.  Illuminated Manuscript becomes, in this way, a tool to find the hidden meaning of the book and understand “the doctrine of these strange verses”.

How do the different styles of illumination in the manuscript contribute to the Florentine master’s text? What new light does it throw on the text? Jean-Luc Leguay explores these questions in this 66-minute talk.