Custom birthday cake made by Heather Frost Hughes (Head Pastry Chef and General Manager, DeLuxe Bakery) and Mary Simmons of Iowa City.
Contributed by Daniel Christian
Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
Custom birthday cake made by Heather Frost Hughes (Head Pastry Chef and General Manager, DeLuxe Bakery) and Mary Simmons of Iowa City.
Contributed by Daniel Christian
“There’s a Brooklyn-based distillery called St. Agrestis that’s been around since 2014. They made their name with an amaro, but have since delved into other spirits. Notably for our purposes, they have a Campari-like bitter called ‘Inferno’ that’s pretty good and an aperitivo called ‘Paradiso.’ They also make bottled Negronis and Spritz using Inferno and Paradiso, respectively.
“Interestingly, the label design hints at a Dantean topography. Inferno and the Negroni both have labels that evoke layers or concentric circles. Paradiso and the Spritz both have a geometric pattern that uses triangles (Trinity?). The batched Negroni also comes in a 1.75L Franzia-style box with a spout (’20 Negronis in every box!’) and the canned spritz comes in a triangular 10-pack case.” –Contributor Alex Cuadrado
Learn more about St. Agrestis’s products here.
Contributed by Alex Cuadrado (Ph.D., Columbia University)
“‘Stai fermo un girone’ è un gioco concepito sul modello del tradizionale ‘gioco dell’oca,’ dedicato all’Inferno di Dante Alighieri e alle discipline della ricerca umanistica coinvolte nello studio del Medioevo.
“Per avanzare e vincere non occorrono soltanto conoscenze sui canti, i personaggi e i temi infernali, ma ci si dovrà anche confrontare con diversi metodi di indagine applicati ai testi negli studi universitari: questa, anzi, sarà la porta d’accesso per guardare all’opera dantesca sullo sfondo dell’intero Medioevo, con la sua storia, le sue idee, la sua cultura, i problemi che si è posto e le risposte che ha provato a dare. Il gioco potrà servire a stimolare e consolidare l’apprendimento in studenti delle superiori che incontrino per la prima volta i versi danteschi, o essere occasione per tutti gli appassionati per rivivere e ricordare – in maniera più disimpegnata – letture del passato. Grazie ai suoi tre livelli di difficoltà, infatti, si adatta a tutti i giocatori, dai principianti agli esperti.
“Il formato stampabile e ritagliabile permette a ciascuno di costruirsi il suo set di carte, segnalini e tavola da gioco e di immergersi nell’Inferno e nel mondo di Dante.” —Milano University Press website
The game—created by Guglielmo Barucci, Paolo Borsa, Rossana Guglielmetti, Luca Sacchi, and Roberto Tagliani—is available for download here (online since December 2021; last accessed January 9, 2022).
Contributed by Osvaldo Varieschi (MA, Florida State University ’23)
“Gentlebrand will mark the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death with a special edition wine range, called Curtai, which features illustrations on the packaging to take consumers on ‘a journey to discover The Divine Comedy.'”
“Curtai will include three different wines to symbolize the three realms visited in Dante’s infamous work – Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise – and acknowledge the number’s frequent presence in the author’s verses. The wines themselves are intended as a journey through the traditional tastes of wines local to the Friuli region in north-eastern Italy; the name Curtis is reportedly linked to the Friulian dialect.” [. . .] —Packaging Europe, December 2, 2021
“Small craft brewing operation decorated with imagery inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy — the brewery gets its name from Dante’s nine circles of hell. Fortunately, the beer is cold, and tasty, and often a good pairing with the abundance of Asian restaurants in the area.” –description on the San Diego Reader
“Lager up, sinners, or wait till the next batch. . . While the Japanese rice lager they served abroad wasn’t served at the opening, an Americanized version of the beer, dubbed Limbo, was.” [. . .] –Ian Anderson, San Diego Reader, August 21, 2017 (retrieved November 27, 2021)
Learn more about Circle 9 Brewing on their FaceBook page here. (Note: The official website for the brewery appears to be inoperable as of posting.)