Inferno Canto III

It was to celebrate the 6th anniversary of Dante's death that in 1920 the project for a monumental edition of Dante's work came to life, financed by the lawyer Rino Valdamieri, together with other private investors. Amos Nattini executed the edition: he worked on the illustrations, the typographic aspects, the creation of the characters and the technical aspects. He therefore made 100 watercolors, one for each canticle, which were subsequently lithographed. 1000 copies were printed in hand-made rag paper 140x100 cm with leather cover of white calf. It took 20 years and 7 months to complete the artwork. Nattini also wanted a lectern to contain the three volumes weighing about 27 kg each: it was made by the cabinetmaker Eugenio Quarti, based on a drawing by architects Giò Ponti and Tommaso Buzzi.

Antinferno, Canto III. Nattini portrays an absolutely human Caronte (charon), not a monstrous hellish demon. He represents him with a long beard, a reference to the verses of the poem, but without the "eyes of bragia". Adhering to Dante's text, the artist paints it in the act of beating souls with the oar to urge them to get on the boat that will lead them to their eternal life, whatever it is. The painter's incredible mastery is poured into the rendering of the "shadows" that crowd the evil shore. With a lot of realism he fills the pictorial space with a multitude of heads, arms, backs. Nattini thus manages to recreate the "pathos", the excited crowding of these bodies that almost do not stand out from each other, creating tension and translating the tensions into movement in the curved lines that characterize the composition. The boat on which the shadows must get on is not even seen, it is simply intuitive because Caronte holds the oar with which he beats them in his right hand.