Canto 1/3 Phillips comments: Like all great literature Dante's Comedy grows from the body of literature that precedes it. The illustrations here frequently emphasise the fact that Inferno is a book that contains books; books that it models itself upon (the Aeneid) and books that it transcends (the Tesoro of Ser Brunetto; cf. Canto XV/2). Virgil is here represented in the form in which Dante first knows him, his work, and in particular the Aeneid of which this is perhaps the first page of a sumptuous illuminated manuscript; hence the initial `A' for the opening of the epic, Arma virumque cano (Arms and the Man, I sing. . .). Dante would have seen such volumes in the mansions of his wealthy patrons: we do not however know how many books the peripatetic exile actually owned; books at that date are handwritten, huge, heavy and very expensive. It is doubtful that Dante owned a complete Bible even: he probably owned fewer than Chaucer's scholar with his 'twenty books clad in black and red.' The imagined page here shown is a conflation of memories of illuminated books of a later period (as Dante himself was to become one of authors most frequently copied and embellished in the world's scriptoria) with improvised epic scenes and characters. The top right hand panel seems to show Dido with Aeneas and points forward to Canto V. The top centre panel shows a seascape and recapitulates the pun (Maro/Mare) echoed in the frontispiece. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.