Art, Symbol & Imagination
Bertran de Born Carries His Head like a Lantern
A headless standing figure raises his severed head toward the poets while other exposed bodies fill the rocky ground below. The canto makes the carried head speak and explains the divided body through the speaker’s account of dividing a father from his son. Doré gives the lifted head the position of a lantern, turning an object of illumination into a speaking face. The composition depends on that disturbing separation rather than a conventional portrait. This is Dante’s literary Bertran de Born; the plate and Cary wording should not substitute for a historical biography. Peripheral pencil writing is excluded from the crop.
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Citation
Gustave Doré (design). "Bertran de Born Carries His Head like a Lantern" [editorial title]. In Dante's Inferno, Dante Alighieri. New Edition, undated supplied scan, undated edition, Thompson & Thomas. Source scan leaf 194. Lumitheca. /gallery/image/inferno-dore-187
Source details
Editorial title and description. Source details from the Library catalogue.
Full original plate and caption individually inspected; exact neighbouring canto read. Editorial title. Source tone and intrinsic damage retained; rotation applies only to Gallery derivatives.
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Gustave Doré (design). Bertran de Born Carries His Head like a Lantern. Dante's Inferno. Scan leaf 194. Lumitheca. https://lumitheca.com/gallery/image/inferno-dore-187