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Scientists recreated the face of Dante Alighieri: what the author of the “Divine Comedy” looked like

  • March 1, 2024
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For the first time, scientists have recreated the face of Italian poet and thinker Dante Alighieri, who was one of the first to invent the artistic depiction of

Scientists recreated the face of Dante Alighieri: what the author of the “Divine Comedy” looked like

For the first time, scientists have recreated the face of Italian poet and thinker Dante Alighieri, who was one of the first to invent the artistic depiction of heaven, hell and purgatory in his famous work “The Divine Comedy.”

Despite the priceless legacy, the true face of the master is still shrouded in mystery, and the most popular paintings featuring his image were created only many years after his death. Now researchers have been able to reproduce his appearance. This was achieved by famous Brazilian graphics expert Cicero Moraes and his team.

“Most of the portraits are based on information from the biography of Dante compiled by the writer Giovanni Boccaccio. That is, he was a person of medium height, somewhat stooped, with a long face, an aquiline nose and larger rather than small eyes. At the same time, they do not know each other personally. The biographer does not know the poet or He collected information from people who lived with him,” said Cicero Moraes.

Image: Cicero Moraes/Pen News

Moraes’s work is based not on words but on data from studies of Dante’s remains. The authors of the reconstruction began with a digital reproduction of the skull, using analysis of the bones from 1921. This analysis is supported by data from a 2007 article on its appearance. They then moved on to approximation, combining art, anthropology, osteology, and anatomy to recreate a person from skeletal remains.

As a result, two versions of the portrait were created: a gray image with hairless and closed eyes and a color image, in which some details were painted according to the most famous images – the color of the eyes, skin and clothes.

Image: Cicero Moraes/Pen News

Moraes believes that the portrait created depicts a person being tortured. The project also showed that the thinker known as the father of the Italian language had an above-average skull.

Dante Alighieri is one of the most famous and influential poets in history. It is believed that he was born in Florence in 1265. In 1302, he was expelled from his hometown along with the party he belonged to. Soon he began writing his famous “Divine Comedy”. He died in 1321. Source

Source: Port Altele

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