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The Ninth Heaven, from Dante's Divine Comedy
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Plate 133 from Gustave Doré's set of illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy. Encountering challenges in convincing a publisher to invest in the costly large-sized folio edition that the he had in mind, Doré decided to fund the publication of the first book in his series, "Inferno," himself in 1861. The outcome was an immediate triumph in both artistic and commercial terms. Fueled by the success of Doré's "Inferno" edition, Hachette released "Purgatorio" and "Paradiso" together in 1868 as a single volume. Subsequently, Doré's Dante illustrations were featured in approximately 200 editions. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)