Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Olivia Holmes and Véronique Plesh on Purg. 19 for “Canto per Canto”

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“Dante has a strange dream in which he is visited by a Siren, who is not all she seems. Professors Olivia Holmes and Véronique Plesh unpack this strange apparition and the many ups and downs in this canto, as Dante reaches the terrace of the avaricious and the prodigal, where the souls, including a former Pope, lie facing the ground to atone for their sins. Olivia and Véronique reflect on what the opposition between movement and stasis means for us, living in the confinement of Covid-19 precautions, and consider the racist paradigms of beauty and virtue that underpin Dante’s vision in Purgatorio 19.” – Kate Travers

Watch or listen to the video “Purgatorio 19: Stasis and Motion: False and True Images” here.

Canto per Canto: Conversations with Dante in Our Time is a collaborative initiative between New York University’s Department of Italian Studies and Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, and the Dante Society of America. The aim is to produce podcast conversations about all 100 cantos of the Divine Comedy, to be completed within the seventh centenary of Dante’s death in 2021.

“Hypnosis”

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“I stumbled upon this image, titled ‘Hypnosis’, while looking through a fashion editorial earlier this week. The shot features model Jourdan Dunn dressed in Iris Van Herpen. It was lensed by Nick Knight and styled by Edward Enninful. The image will be included in British Vogue’s current November issue [2019].

“The shot immediately reminds me of Dante’s entrance into earthly Paradise (in particular, it reminds me of Amos Nattini’s rendition of the scene). The similarity between the colors used, compositions of the frames, and the depictions of Beatrice is, to me, undeniable.”    –Contributor Wade Pryor

Contributed by Wade Pryor, Harvard ’20

Matelda, too!

“Tuscany” Perfumes by Aramis

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tuscany-perfume-per-donna-by-aramis      tuscany-per-uomo-perfume-by-aramis

Difficult to see, but the “Tuscany per donna” has as its slogan in French “Out of that stream there issued living sparks” (Par. XXX.64) and in English, “It draws fire to the moon” (Par. I.115). The “Tuscany per uomo” has as its slogan, “It moves the sun and the other stars” (last verse of Paradiso).

Contributed by Guy Raffa (University of Texas, Austin)

How to Cite

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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