Selection from Divina Commedia – Inferno by Graba’
Selection from Divina Commedia – Purgatorio by Graba’
Selection from Divina Commedia – Paradiso by Graba’
View Graba”s full gallery here.
posted on November 12, 2020 by
Jennifer D. Upton, The Ordeal of Mercy (2015)
“The Ordeal of Mercy is a book of wide erudition and simple style; its goal is to present the Purgatorio, according to the science of spiritual psychology, as a practical guide to travelers on the Spiritual Path. The author draws upon many sources: the Greek Fathers, notably Maximos the Confessor; St. John Climacus; Fathers and Doctors of the Latin Church, including St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas; John Donne, William Blake and other metaphysical poets; the doctrines of Dante’s own initiatory lineage, the Fedeli d’Amore; the modern Eastern Orthodox writers Pavel Florensky and Jean-Claude Larchet; and the writings of the Traditionalist/Perennialist School, including René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon, Martin Lings, Leo Schaya, and Titus Burckhardt. Other exegetes of Dante have dealt with the overall architecture of the Divine Comedy, its astronomical and numerical symbolisms, its philosophical underpinnings, and its historical context. Jennifer Doane Upton, however—while preserving the narrative flow of the Purgatorio and making many cogent observations about its metaphysics—directs our attention instead to many of its ‘minute particulars,’ unveiling their depth and symbolic resonance. She presents the ascent of the Mountain of Purgatory as a series of timeless steps, each of which must be plumbed to its depths before the next step arrives; in so doing she demonstrates how the center of this journey of purgation is everywhere, and its circumference nowhere. In the words of the author, ‘The soul in its journey must divest itself of extraneous tendencies and desires in order to become the ‘simple’ soul of theology — the soul of one essence, of one will, of one mind. If it can do this it will reach Paradise, its true homeland.'” [. . .] –Jennifer D. Upton, Angelico Press
Check out the Angelico Press website to read praise for The Ordeal of Mercy.
posted on October 23, 2020 by
Radiohead, “Pyramid Song,” Amnesiac (2001)
“According to Colin Greenwood, it was the image of ‘people being ferried across the river of death’ that most affected Yorke. This is reflected in the song’s many references to Dante’s imaginary journey through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, Divine Comedy. These include the black-eyed angels, a moon full of stars and jumping into the river.” –Anonymous user on songfacts.com
Contributed by Justin Meckes
For an academic take on Radiohead’s Dantesque influences, see the discussion of “Pyramid Song” in Brad Osborn, Everything in its Right Place: Analyzing Radiohead (Oxford UP, 2017), p. 192 [log-in required]:
“In addition to depicting images directly correlating to the song’s lyrics, the song’s music video suggests further allusions to this scene—Dante’s fifth circle of Hell—not directly found in those lyrics (‘let us descend now unto greater woe; already sinks each star that was ascending’).19 The greater woe of the music video is the environmental fallout of a warming planet—precisely what Yorke identifies as Dante’s ‘lukewarm’ (both literally in terms of global temperature, and figuratively regarding humankind’s collective inertia for change). Global warming reappears continually in Radiohead’s multimedia output. Take for example the short Kid A promotional video—affectionately refereed to by fans as ‘blips’—that promoted ‘Motion Picture Soundtrack’ (2000–10). In this video the iconic ‘minotaur’ that accompanies nearly all of the Kid A and Amnesiac artwork is reimagined as a polar bear stranded on a sinking floe of ice. What immediately follows cements the link between global warming and Dante. As the polar bear slowly sinks to the tune of ‘I will see you in the next life,’ a sinister, red-eyed, black-cloaked minotaur sails across the river—now blood-red—in a tiny row boat brandishing a sickle.”
See also Giulio Carlo Pantalei, “The Middle Ages of Postmodernism: Dante, Thom Yorke, and Radiohead,” Dante e l’arte 6 (2019): 127-142.
posted on October 22, 2020 by
Beth Coggeshall and Deborah Parker on Purg. 16 for “Canto per Canto”
“’When I teach this canto I always like to get my students to think with me by analogy of other determining factors or determining forces that are external to ourselves, that we think of as placing some kind of condition or constraint on our free moral agency.’ To think about Purgatorio 16 ‘in light of the conversations about systemic racism and systemic injustices that we are confronting as a culture right now’ means to ask the right questions. Just like those that Dante asks Marco Lombardo. But it also means to entrust someone or something (Virgil? Reason?) in the dark, with our eyes bound to the fog, and with the intimate conviction of reaching the light, sooner or later, through questioning. Join Deborah Parker and Elizabeth Coggeshall in conversation about the compelling richness of this canto: the moral architecture of the poem, the visual aspects and its visual reception, the encounter with Marco Lombardo, the dichotomy ira bona (good anger)/iracondia (irascibility), the singing of penitents, the vacuum of leadership. All aspects that will lead to a concrete questioning of our modern society.” –Maria Zilla
Watch or listen to the video of “Purgatorio 16: The Poem’s Moral Center” 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.
posted on October 13, 2020 by
“Lelouch’s Little Light Reading” in Code Geass R2 (2006)
“Eagle-eyed viewers of Code Geass R2‘s first episode may have spotted that Lelouch is reading Dante’s Divina Commedia while Rollo gives him a lift. (As a child, I never loved anyone enough to give them my last Rolo.)
Slightly more obsessive viewers will have discovered that he is in fact reading the Purgatorio Canto XXII.” –Thaliarchus, Animanachronism, April 9, 2008
Learn more about Sunrise’s 2006 anime Code Geass here.
posted on September 30, 2020 by
Olivia Holmes and Véronique Plesh on Purg. 19 for “Canto per Canto”
“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.
posted on September 25, 2020 by
Paola Rodriguez and Raymond Capra on Purg. 1 for “Canto per Canto”
“Paola M. Rodriguez and Raymond Capra discuss Dante’s arrival on the island of Purgatory. Although this canto explores themes of liminality, it is central to Dante’s journey. This is the moment when Dante encounters Cato, the enigmatic figure who died by suicide and who now watches over the souls on the shores of Purgatory. Join us as Rodriguez and Capra investigate this innovative representation of the renowned Roman and the significance of the reed belt Virgil gives Dante, as he begins his journey to the top of Mount Purgatory.” – Kate Travers
Listen to/watch “Purgatorio 1: Cato the wise poet/prophet and the humble reed of exegesis” 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.
posted on September 24, 2020 by
“Catholic Sculptor Re-Creating Dante’s Divine Comedy Aims to Shift the Emphasis off Hell”
“In preparation for the 700th anniversary of the death of medieval poet Dante Alighieri, a Canadian artist is creating a sculptural tribute to his Divine Comedy that would be the first sculptural rendition of the entire poem.
‘In our culture Dante is becoming lost,’ said sculptor Timothy Schmalz in an interview with Religion News Service on Monday (July 20).
Not only is Dante less and less required reading, Schmalz said, but his Divine Comedy is often misrepresented by putting the focus only on the first part — the descriptions of hell and its fiery punishments.
[. . .]
There are 100 cantos in the poem, which have previously been represented in etchings and drawings by the likes of Sandro Botticelli, Gustave Doré and William Blake, but Schmalz would be the first to represent the full poem through sculpture.
‘I realized why it hasn’t been done before,’ he said. ‘It’s so much work.'” –Claire Giangravé, Religion News Service, July 21, 2020
posted on September 22, 2020 by
“La Commedia di Dante alle Terme di Caracalla”
“Dal 20 luglio al 2 settembre 2020 Franco Ricordi porta in scena a Roma “La Commedia di Dante alle Terme di Caracalla”.
Nel suggestivo scenario archeologico capitolino, l’artista e filosofo porta in scena un nuovo progetto da lui ideato e interpretato che ha come protagonista l’Opera del sommo Poeta, attraverso una lettura di Canti scelti dall’Inferno, dal Purgatorio e dal Paradiso. Il progetto è promosso dalla Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma.” –Valerio De Luca, A Naso, July 21, 2020
posted on September 15, 2020 by
Elizabeth Coggeshall, “Bad Apples and Sour Trees”
“Among the Times photographs, there is an image of a Black protester in Atlanta, cutting through the smoke, his open palms raised. He cries out, a vox clamantis in deserto, in righteous rage against the injustice that killed George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and countless other Black Americans. His defiant approach is a picture of the words Virgil uses to describe his charge at the entrance to Purgatory: ‘He goes seeking freedom, which is so precious, as one knows who gives up his life for its sake.’
“The freedoms demanded by this protester — economic, legal, political, bodily — are material ones. He seeks liberation from ‘the policies that ensnare‘ Black Americans in an unjust system. These freedoms are substantially different than the immaterial freedom sought by the pilgrim in his journey up the mountain. The freedom Dante’s pilgrim seeks, like that which we seek to restore to our civic institutions, is a moral one: the freedom of moral integrity, which comes from the alignment of one’s actions with one’s principles.” —Dante Today co-editor Elizabeth Coggeshall, “Bad Apples and Sour Trees: Dante on Systemic Injustice, Rage, and Reform,” The Sundial (September 15, 2020)
