Dante is writing the Divine Comedy. Sitting at a lectern with his pen poised above an open book, the poet is nestled within a large initial N. The N is the first letter in “Nel,” the first word of Canto 1 of Inferno: “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita” (“Midway on our life’s journey”). The heading inscribed above reads: “Here begins the commedia of Dante Aligheri of Florence.”
La Divina commedia, in Italian. Florence, Italy, 1330–37, MS M.289, fol. 1r. Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913) in 1907.