Object details
Object number
2.d.1.8
Creator(s)
Title
Divine Comedy
Date
1879
Medium
Ink on paper bound in leather with silver decoration
Object Case
Dante Case
Language
Italian
Publication Place
Florence
Binding Description
19th century, bound by Tiffany
Description
1 v., 723, cxxx pages ; 12°
Provenance
Gift from the novelist Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909) to Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1894.
Signatures, inscriptions, and markings
Engraved inscription on inside of clasps in silver on binding: The two are oneInscribed in black ink (half-title page): ‘Marion Crawford, 1882’ and ‘legato con amore in un volume/ Ciò che per l’universo si sqauderna/ Par. XXXIII. 86’ (bound with love in one volume all that is scattered throughout the universe)
Dimensions
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."
Gallery
Long Gallery
Bibliography
Isabella Stewart Gardner. A Choice of Manuscripts and Bookbindings from the Library of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Fenway Court (Boston, 1922), p. 94.Rollin Hadley. “Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 9, no. 7 (17 Oct. 1965), p. 2. Maureen Cunningham. "The Dante Quest." Fenway Court (1972), p. 25.Rachel Jacoff in Alan Chong et al. (eds.) Eye of the Beholder: Masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 2003), pp. 72-73, ill.Nathaniel Silver and Diana Seave Greenwald. Isabella Stewart Gardner: A Life (Boston, 2022), p.53, fig. 24.Diana Seave Greenwald, "Did They or Didn't They? F. Marion Crawford and Isabella Stewart Gardner," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 5 March 2024, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/f-marion-crawford-and-isabella-stewart-gardner
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