Dante Alighieri - Divine Comedy, 1879

Dante Alighieri (Florence, 1265 - 1321, Ravenna)

Divine Comedy, 1879

Ink on paper bound in leather with silver decoration, 19.2 x 12.7 x 8.7 cm (7 9/16 x 5 x 3 7/16 in.)

Commentary

Isabella Stewart Gardner and the novelist F. Marion Crawford bonded over a love of the Italian poet Dante. Their close relationship inspired rumors of an affair. It is impossible to know whether or not the two had a physical affair, but the surviving traces of their mutual admiration have romantic undertones.The perceived attachment between Isabella and Frank likely precipitated the young author's abrupt departure from Boston in the spring of 1883. Crawford spent the rest of his life in Sorrento, where he was a prolific writer and a married father of four children. When Crawford visited the States in 1893, he and Isabella reconnected. Crawford had their modern copies of Dante's Divine Comedy interleaved and bound in green leather by Tiffany & Co. in New York. Each of the silver clasps are engraved: "The two are one."