Shaw emailed to point out an essay in the Jan. 11, 2007 New York Review of Books by Michael Dirda about Dante and Erich Auerbach's stud...

A review of the Fagles translation of the Aeneid by Brad Leithouser which appeared in the Times - thanks Mussy! Wars and a Man There’s a mo...

The evening of our discussion of cantos 10-11, I happened to watch Francesco, giullare di Dio , the 1950 film directed by Roberto Rossellini...

At Mussy's suggestion, here's a piece on the Aeneid from the NY Times' Connections - posted in full because the Times tends to ...

A book-loving friend sends a link to LibraryThing , a site for books and those who care about them. People enter titles of books they own, l...

Canto 12 completes the tripartite structure begun in Canto 10 which will be the pattern for each of the seven terraces of the deadly sins: E...

The canto ends with another character, the illuminator, Oderisi, l'honor d'Agobbio ...

This is the first terrace of Purgatory proper, with three images -- Dante calls them visibile parlare , speech made visible -- of antitypes ...

The canto presents some unusual interpretive challenges beginning with the very first terzina: La concubina di Titone antico Gia s'...

though each a life of narrow span, Ne'er stretched to summers more than seven, befalls, Yet deathless doth the race endure, and still Pe...

Here are a few follow-ups to questions raised during our last session, taken from Wikipedia's basic article on Purgatory : Besides the c...

Atene e Lacedemona, che fenno l'antiche leggi e furon sì civili, fecero al viver bene un picciol cenno verso di te, che fai tanto sottil...