Scientists have reconstructed Dante Alighieri's face for the first time

Scientists have reconstructed the face of the Italian poet and thinker Dante Alighieri, who was one of the first to invent an artistic description of heaven, hell, and purgatory in his famous work The Divine Comedy, for the first time.

Про це розповідає SSPDaily.

Traditionally, in Botticelli's 1495 portrait and a fresco in Florence Cathedral, Dante is depicted with a long nose and a sharp chin. However, the new 3D image differs from them. Now researchers have been able to recreate his appearance. The famous Brazilian graphics expert Cicero Moraes and his team managed to do it.

"Most of the portraits are based on information contained in the biography of Dante by the writer Giovanni Boccaccio. Namely, that he was a man of average height, somewhat stooped, with an elongated face, an eagle nose and eyes that were larger than small. At the same time, they did not know each other personally. The biographer drew information from people who knew the poet or lived with him," Cicero said.

The authors of the reconstruction began by digitally recreating the skull using a 1921 analysis of his bones, supported by data from a 2007 article about his appearance. They then proceeded to approximation: recreating a face from his skeletal remains by combining art, anthropology, osteology, and anatomy.

Photo: Cicero Moraes/Pen News

As a result, two versions of the portrait were created: a gray image without hair and with closed eyes, and a color one, where some details were added, such as eye, skin, and clothing color, in accordance with the most famous images.

Earlier, scientists reconstructed the face of a woman who died 4200 years ago. The woman remained buried for thousands of years until her skeleton was found by archaeologists in a quarry in modern-day Scotland.