Italy's Three Crowns

[tree_and_leaf]

I encourage anyone who happens to be in Oxford to go and visit the free exhibition on Dante, Petrach and Boccaccio which is on at the Bod until October 31st. It's a typical Bodleian exhibition, in that it amounts to 'Some interesting stuff in Oxford on X'; but there are some very interesting manuscripts, early printed books and paintings (mostly DG Rossetti, most notably 'Dante drawing an angel' as Lizzie Sidal Gemma looks on). Among the books, I was particularly interested in the very early illustrated Dante (1350), open at the page showing Dante and Vergil entering Purgatory, and Dante being tattooed with the sharp end of a sword, and the first terrace - rather lovely, and high quality drawing, the early editions of Dante, showing the increasing respect with which the poem was treated; Petrarch's Suetonius and Ambrose, with his marginalia; some striking illustrated manuscripts of the Decameron; the 'after Vasari' of the six Florentine poets on loan from Oriel SCR, and the lock of Percy and Mary Shelley's hair (groping rather desperately for exhibits, there...)