Evelyn Paul: Dante’s La Vita Nuova

Aug 21, 2008

Evelyn Paul: Dante’s La Vita Nuova

Categories: FeaturedSingle, Literature & Poetry

Written By: John

Evelyn Paul lived in the late 19th and the early 20th century and worked to beautifully illuminate and illustrate many books. Many had art with Christian themes such as this, but her work was much broader as well. Most if not all of her work was done in the first quarter of the 20th century. Many people feel that she did her best work for the books (such as La Vita Nuova) put out by Harrap. Because the text is available elsewhere, I have not scanned or included that much here. The complete texts and illustrations of this as well as some of the other manuscripts she illuminated are available (off this site) CLICK HERE.

I have included two versions of most images. The paper and colors were fairly age toned, so I removed some of this. I tried to fix any color distortion or brightness issues, but I cannot say how well teh touched up images reflect the original state of the illustrations. The only copies I have seen have been similarly ages. Some images, such as the angel from page 115, I have posted in a few versions to reflect the colors brought out by different edits.

The edited full page illustrations I have posted at a much larger size than usual, 3000 pixels on the long side. I am not sure why. I guess I had them so I decided to put them up for folks to have.

There are a lot of margin details. I scanned as much as I could from various pages. Paul added intricate detail to almost all the pages, so there is a lot to work with in the book. Some have had edited versions added as well.

Below is a sampling. There is a lot more in the GALLERY for this book.

Title: La Vita Nuova (The New Life)
Author: Dante Alighieri
Artist: Evelyn Paul
Publisher: George G. Harrap / Brentanos
Date Published: 1916