Ways of Seeing Dante

This is the home of an emerging interdisciplinary discussion of the works of Dante and the ways in which we encounter them today.

We will be hosting a series of conversations about the importance of visual, textual, and intellectual engagement in Dante’s works and in the history of their reception. In other words, we’re asking two questions:

1. What are the various ways that Dante asks us to look at and read his own works?
   ‘Leva dunque, lettor, […] meco la vista’ [Lift up your eyes with me, then, reader] (Paradiso X, 7-8)
2. In what was has Dante actually been viewed and read in the seven centuries since his death in 1321?

‘Portrait of Dante Alighieri and Beatrice Portinari’, Bernard Essers, 1922

‘Lucifer’, Cornelis Galle (I), naar Cigoli, naar Jan van der Straet, ca. 1590-ca. 1600

 

By bringing together specialists in literature, art history, music, theatre, film and media studies, and others, we will collectively explore the ways in which we keep returning to Dante as a model and influence for so many forms of art and so many intellectual endeavours.

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