Fotoreproductie van een fresco, voorstellende een portret van Dante Alighieri before 1888

This is a photogravure of a fresco depicting Dante Alighieri, made by an anonymous artist, capturing the Florentine poet in profile, adorned with his iconic headwear. The headwear is a powerful symbol of the poet's identity and the intellectual tradition he represents. The way the cloth drapes around his head echoes classical Roman portraiture, linking Dante to a lineage of thinkers and leaders. You can see a similar motif in depictions of philosophers from antiquity—a deliberate invocation of wisdom and authority. Consider, too, the psychological weight of portraiture itself. The act of capturing a likeness has always been fraught with the desire to preserve memory, to cheat death. Dante, immortalized in verse and image, transcends the bounds of mortality, his gaze forever fixed on an unknowable horizon. His solemn expression—a mask of profound thought—invites us to contemplate the depths of human experience, the very essence of what it means to be.