On September 14, 2021, the British Library in London hosted an online event titled “Dante in the British Library: Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven”. The event featured two lectures on Dante about the following:
“Alessandro Scafi – Mapping Paradise in the Middle Ages: Dante and the Garden of Eden
“Christian scholars and map-makers of the late Middle Ages were dedicated to the search for the Garden of Eden, as described in Genesis. Could paradise be found on a map? Dante’s knowledge of geographical lore was deep, rich, and varied, and his Divine Comedy echoes contemporary debates about the location and the mapping of paradise.
“Elisabeth Trischler – Architecture and the Afterlife: How the Urban Spaces of Medieval Florence inspired Dante’s Divine Comedy
“The city of Florence underwent a significant building boom in the 13th and 14th centuries, and this expansion offers a way to explore Dante’s world. This lecture uses illustrations of the Divine Comedy from the British Library’s collection to show how Dante’s masterpiece was shaped by Florence’s urban spaces.” [. . .] —The British Library (retrieved April 11, 2022)
View the event’s listing on the British Library’s website here.
