Abstract: The figure of Matilda in Botticelli's illustration of Purgatorio 28 visually recalls his earlier depiction of Mercury or Hermes in his painting, Primavera: Matilda and Mercury each extend a hand to the sky in an identical gesture. Barolsky argues that the gesture of Primavera's Mercury, however, itself recalls a section of Purgatorio 28 in which Matilda twice refers to dispel a cloud from Dante's understanding. In his Primavera, Botticelli makes this figure of speech visible: when Mercury extends his arm skywards, he appears to disperse the clouds above his head so that the sun shines through and is reflected in his eyes. Botticelli thus transforms the figure of speech into an image by representing the very act of "unclouding," and the resultant moment of spiritual illumination. Turning to Matilda herself in his illustration of the canto, Botticelli preserves Mercury's posture but does not need to render the clouds Mercury dislodges. According to Barolsky, the viewer, familiar with Matilda's allusion to the unclouding of the intellect, does not need a visual cue to be reminded of Matilda's discourse. "The conceit of unclouding the intellect, having originally passed from Matilda to Mercury in the Primavera, has now returned from the god to the 'enlightened lady' who assumes Mercury's or Hermes's hermeneutical identity as the explicator of divine truth."
Abstract from the American Dante Bibliography 1998
Reproduced by courtesy of the Dante Society of America