Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

The Straight Way Lost

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“[The Straight Way Lost] is a 400-page book that is one part sourcebook and setting guide for fantasy gaming in a Renaissance that never quite was, and the other part an earth-shaking adventure of intrigue, terror and
triumph.

“This gripping adventure for 5e is set in a fantastical version of Renaissance Italy and features a voyage between Heaven and Hell
inspired by that most renowned of Italian poems, [La Divina Commedia].

[…]

“It is the year 1492. In the mighty city-state of Florence, Girolamo Savonarola, the charismatic prior of San Marco is fighting to rid society of the decay that has set in under the reign of the Medici family. The adventurers are drawn into this political game of intrigue and set out to find a cure for the evil that has befallen their home. Their journey will have them cross paths with the mysterious fey queen of the Apennine and discover the secrets of the strange nexus realm the fae call the Great Loom, but only after following in the footsteps of Dante Alighieri through the netherworlds can the heroes return to face the enemy and help create their City On A Hill.”   —Vortex Verlag, The Straight Way Lost, Kickstarter, January 26, 2024 (retrieved February 6, 2024)

Dante’s Divine Comedy Performed by Dance Company No Gravity in Kansas City

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“Now Dante’s epic poem is a ballet, and it’s going to be performed in Kansas City. The Harriman-Jewell Series presents the Italian dance company No Gravity performing Divine Comedy Jan. 31 at the Folly Theater.

“From the sulfurous depths of the Inferno to Paradiso, where Dante has a mystical vision of “the Love that moves the sun and the other stars,” “Divine Comedy” is undoubtedly one of the central works of Western civilization. But to tell its cosmic story theatrically is a challenge. Pellisari, however, has created a stage work that brings Dante’s medieval phantasmagoria to life.”    — “To Hell and Back: Dazzling dance company does Dante,” KC Studio, January 10, 2024.

Commedia-Inspired Renaissance Paintings?

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This review was written in reference to Martin Kemp’s examinations of John Took’s Dante. For more analysis, read the full article here.

“Kemp’s idea is to set up a paragone, comparing, on the one hand, Dante’s scientific and metaphorical/theological understanding of light and sight in the Divine Comedy (1308–21), especially in Paradiso, to, on the other, renderings of divine light in Italian Renaissance and Baroque painting. He opens with a scholarly survey of late medieval natural science accounts of optics and of light (noting in particular the widely accepted theories of the late 10th-/early 11th-century mathematician Ibn al-Haytham, known as Alhazan), before laying out what he understands of Dante’s knowledge of, and interest in, this topic, which he terms the poet’s ‘dazzle’—the failure of sight when confronted with the splendore (blinding light) of Empyrean Heaven.

[. . .] “Kemp makes periodic disclaimers throughout the book that it is impossible to cite documented or obvious connections between Dante’s light and works of art (except for illuminated or illustrated editions of the Commedia) but, to avoid cutting the ground from under his own feet, he makes a Roger-Fry swerve: the viewer will need a special sensitivity to see the ‘Dantesque’ as Kemp does. ‘The more general and less discernible diaspora [of Dante’s divine light] is something that can be sensed as a common factor as we pass from one scheme of decoration to another. This is not a matter of firm historical demonstration so much as the deployment of visual and poetic instinct.’ Kemp is insistent, pounding away with Maslow’s hammer throughout, that it is Dante’s divine light that appears in all the works he cites. It must be said that, in the paragone he proposes, it is not a question of attributable sources that is the problem; it is the category failure of comparing poetry with painting, apples with pears. Ultimately, Dante himself says that the only possible answer to ‘Who does divine light best?’ has to be God Himself, lux eterna.”     –Donald Lee, The Art Newspaper, July 2, 2021

See our posts on John Took here and Martin Kemp here.

“From the Dark Wood to Paradise: Dante Alighieri at the University of Nairobi” (2021)

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dante-alighieri-at-university-of-nairobi“The University of Nairobi’s Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Literature, the Italian Embassy, and the Italian cultural institute collaborated on a conference dubbed ‘From the Dark Wood to Paradise: Dante Alighieri at the University of Nairobi.’

“During the event, excerpts of the audiobook version of From the Dark Wood to Paradise were read to the participants in English, Kiswahili, and Italian; some parts of the Divine Comedy have been translated into 33 languages including Swahili.

“(The event) also included a segment for the collaborators to share their perspectives.

“Speaking at the conference, the Italian Ambassador to Kenya, Ambassador Alberto Pieri noted that some Italian words are used in Kenya and across the globe thus showcasing the undeniable influences of Italian culture to the world.

“‘There is no better partner in terms of culture than Italy because culture goes back to the Greco-Roman period. Aspects of culture and technology like road-building are drawn from that early cultural heritage.  As a university, we would like to see this collaboration grow into a full collaboration where we are able to interact in terms of theatre and languages’ (Dean Faculty of Arts, Prof. Ephraim Wahome).

“‘The Italian language has been part of the population of the country of Kenya for a long time. Malindi for example has often been referred to as Little Italy since the late 60s because of its cultural inclination’ (Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Stephen Kiama).

“‘He is part of what came to be known as three crowns of Italian literature. The others are the writer Giovanni Boccaccio well known for his text and Francesco Petrarch the father of the Renaissance movement. Indeed, the works of the three crowns of Italian literature have been known to comprise an entire teaching unit in English and literature departments the world over signaling the importance of the contribution of the Italian language to world literature’ (Alex Wanjala, Dept. of Linguistics, Languages, and Literature).

“Dante Alighieri at University of Nairobi concluded with the screening of the film The Sky over Kibera by Marco Martinelli (Teatro delle Albe).” [. . .]     —University of Nairobi, October 27, 2021

See also the related post about The Sky over Kibera here.

Martin Kemp, Visions of Heaven: Dante and the Art of Divine Light (2021)

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visions-of-heaven-dante-and-the-art-of-divine-light-martin-kemp-cover“In Visions of Heaven, renowned scholar Martin Kemp investigates Dante’s supreme vision of divine light and its implications for the visual artists who were the inheritors of Dante’s vision. The whole book may be regarded as a new Paragone (comparison), the debate that began in the Renaissance about which of the arts is superior. Dante’s ravishing accounts of divine light set painters the severest challenge, which took them centuries to meet. A major theme running through Dante’s Divine Comedy, particularly in its third book, the Paradiso, centres on Dante s acts of seeing (conducted according to optical rules with respect to the kind of visual experience that can be accomplished on earth) and the overwhelming of Dante s earthly senses by heavenly light, which does not obey his rules of earthly optics. [. . .] Published to coincide with the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death, this hugely original book combines a close reading of Dante’s poetry with analysis of early optics and the art of the Renaissance and Baroque to create a fascinating, wide-ranging and visually exciting study.”    — Amazon (retrieved October 18, 2021)

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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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