Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Magdalen Nabb, Vita Nuova (A Florentine Mystery)

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“Marshal Guarnaccia’s sense of malaise sets in as Florence closes for the summer holiday. But outside the quiet city, a wealthy young woman is shot to death in her parents’ villa. A single mother pursuing her doctorate seems an unlikely target for slaughter, but perhaps the marshal can parse the truth from her unusual family.

“The fourteenth and final Florentine mystery featuring Marshal Guarnaccia”   —Magdalen Nabb, Vita Nuova (A Florentine Mystery), Amazon, January 1, 2008 (retrieved December 15, 2023)

“A final reminder of why [Nabb] is irreplaceable among English speaking novelists who write mysteries with Italian locales. Like the 13 previous novels in this series set in Florence and featuring Marshal Guarnaccia, Vita Nuova reflects the sensibility of someone who sees much, speaks softly and takes pity on strangers.”   —Marilyn Stasio, “Italian Blood,” The New York Times, June 8, 2008 (retrieved December 15, 2023)

The Dante Game

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“When the Pope issues a sweeping edict calling for a yearlong war on drugs, no one is more surprised than the Vatican to find the campaign a success. In every Catholic corner of the world, young people throw down their needles to pick up crosses. In Florence, thousands of them converge on the Duomo to thank Christ for their newfound commitment to sobriety. Nearly everyone is relieved by this development—save for Leonardo Bindo, banker and druglord. To get his business back on track, he seizes upon a simple plan: Kill the Pope. Standing in his way is Homer Kelly, transcendentalist scholar and occasional detective. In Florence to teach at a new international university, Homer stumbles on Bindo’s scheme while investigating the disappearance of a beautiful young student. His Italian may be lousy, but Homer is the only man who can save Italy from itself.”   —Jane Langton, The Dante Game, Amazon (1991)

Zone Blanche Netflix Series (2017)

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zone-blanche-netflix-series-posterZone Blanche (“Black Spot” in English) is a French-Belgian series directed by Matthieu Missoffe. Two seasons are currently available on Netflix, with future seasons expected.

“The entire first season of Black Spot contains so many Dante references that any aficionado of Inferno can spot them: the deathlike forest impenetrable by sunlight; the suicide victims suspended from the trees, horribly disfigured by attacking birds; a teenage girl who cuts off her own fingers to escape a hellish coming-of-age ritual; a descent into a treacherous network of caverns to locate a missing person, assumed dead; encounters with beings who may be either alive or dead; a legendary monster called the Wendigo; a reservoir of waste guaranteed to kill what little life remains in the dying village. The careful viewer will spot yet more parallels to Dante, some of which are very subtle.

“With a vision as true as it is dark, Missoffe’s Black Spot not only recasts the evils of Dante’s Florence, but of our entire Western world.”    –Contributor Jane Wineland

Contributed by Jane Wineland (University of Arkansas Ph.D. ’26)

 

“Dante’s Inferno: Navigating the Complexities of Hell in As Above, So Below“

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“These words scrawled across the walls beneath the Paris Catacombs mark the entrance to Hell for the characters in As Above, So Below. They herald in a nightmarish final act. The very same words that mark the gates to Hell in writer Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, the first part of his epic poem of Divine Comedy. Inferno tells of Dante’s journey through the nine circles of Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. Their journey begins on Good Friday, and the pair emerges from Hell early on Easter morning under a starry sky. Though As Above, So Below draws from various mythologies, it’s Dante’s Inferno and its complex rendering of Hell that most closely mirrors protagonist Scarlett Marlowe’s quest, making for an atypical found footage film that offers impressively layered world-building.

[. . .]

“The only way out is down. That they descend through a well is significant. Scarlett explains the phrase ‘as above, so below’ is the key to all magic. What happens in one reality occurs in another, presenting a bizarre mirror-like symmetry to their voyage. The group begins by climbing down a well, and they end it by going down another well. In Inferno, wells play a part in getting Dante and his guide to the eighth and ninth circles. Later, Dante and Virgil finally reach the center of Hell and begin their escape by continuing downward. Dante is convinced they’re returning to Hell, only to realize gravity has changed, and they’re climbing up to the surface. Dante, half-way through his life, begins his journey spiritually lost. More than just a guide to Hell, Virgil becomes his guide to virtue and mortal. That’s mirrored in Scarlett, reckless and reeling from the loss of her father, and George, the strict rule-abiding ethical anchor. Much of George’s fear for breaking the law stems from spending time in a Turkish prison before the events of the film, which also parallel’s Virgil in that he detailed his personal trip through Hell in his poem Aeneid.”    –Meagan Navarro, Bloody Disgusting, April 10, 2020

See our original post on As Above, So Below here.

Dario Crapanzano, Il furto della Divina Commedia (2019)

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“Milano 1954, Michele Esposito, preside in un liceo di Città Studi, ha una grande passione: i libri antichi, nei quali investe la maggior parte delle sue entrate. Grazie a un’eredità riesce ad acquistare, per ben quattro milioni di lire, l’incunabolo di una Divina Commedia del Quattrocento. Una copia rara e preziosa che il preside presenta solennemente al corpo docente dell’istituto. Quando, uno dei giorni seguenti, il libro sparisce dalla cassaforte della scuola, a indagare viene chiamato Fausto Lorenzi, un ispettore dagli occhi «di ghiaccio».

“Chi poteva conoscere la combinazione della cassaforte? Molti sono i sospettati: i docenti e anche la storica segretaria, che molti definiscono la vera preside. E quando viene scoperto un omicidio, Lorenzi collega subito il delitto al furto.

“Ma il mistero rimane fitto…

“Nella consueta atmosfera vintage della Milano anni Cinquanta, tra cinema fumosi e antiche librerie antiquarie, Dario Crapanzano costruisce un giallo appassionante e crea, dopo Mario Arrigoni, un nuovo personaggio investigatore, che sorprenderà i lettori e che proverà a risolvere lo strano caso del furto della Divina Commedia.”    — Mondadori

Contributed by Ludovica Valentini (Florida State University, MA ’18)

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Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

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