Dante's words in Commedia miniatures: pictorial textuality as commentary on the poet's authority.

The article focuses on pictorial and textual modes of communication used in the narrative poem "Divine Comedy," by Dante Alighieri in connection with the theological and philosophical authority of its author. It highlights the various literary forms and means used by Alighieri in his depiction of Hell, Purgatorio and Paradiso as each aspect of the poem delves on an inquiry into the afterlife. It asserts that the use of text and miniatures to describe the journey from Hell to Heaven are two distinct ways of expression. It tells that the Divine Comedy, as some commentators of the 14th and 15th century see it, is a work inspired by God. However, it says that commentators such as Leonardo Bruni, Guiniforte Barzizza and Gianozzo Manetti believe that the opposite is true for the work.