Note 159 — GIOTTO’S PORTRAIT OF DANTE.[142]

An anachronism of another kind would have been committed by Giotto, if, before the Comedy was even begun, he had represented Dante as holding the closed book and cluster of three pomegranates—emblematical of the three regions described by him and of the completion of his work.—I say nothing of the Inferno found on another wall of the chapel, since there seems good reason to doubt if it is by Giotto.