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Abstract The chapter first reviews an old assumption that the ‘realism’ of Dante must have responded to the ‘naturalism’ of Giotto and other contemporary artists. Taken simply, this assumption is naïve and valueless. The chapter proceeds to consider the contrary view, now more prevalent, that in the Commedia Dante’s visionary mind detached itself from material images, rendering these irrelevant. This attitude is also problematized, in the light of Dante’s persistent use of visual imagery in ways which complicate the assumed distinction between words and images. Selected fourteenth-century paintings are cited to demonstrate how certain painters, like Dante in his poetry, were capable of working simultaneously in more than one register, with deliberate intent to bring the audience first into lively engagement with a naturalistically realized scene, and then to disturb that recognition, prompting awareness of a truth which lies beyond the surface. Both Dante and these artists engaged the same challenge, and deployed equivalent means.
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