Dante Alighieri: The Divine Comedy

Virginia Lectura Dantis

This project gathered together scholars to write interpretive essays on each of the Cantos of the Divine Comedy. They were published by the University of Virginia in the journal, Lectura Dantis (1987-1998). Links to the issues for each section of the Comedy are below:

California Lectura Dantis

This project was based at the University of California, and conicinded with Allen Mandelbaum's translation of the Divine Comedy. Like the Virginia project above, scholars were commissioned to write interpretive essays for each canto, later published in book form. To date, only the volumes on Inferno and Purgatorio are complete. Links below are for the print editions, but eBook versions are also available in the library's catalog.

Vertical Readings in Dante's Comedy

Organized by the University of Cambridge, "Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy is a reappraisal of the poem by an international team of thirty-four scholars. Each vertical reading analyses three same-numbered cantos from the three canticles: Inferno i, Purgatorio i and Paradiso i; Inferno ii, Purgatorio ii and Paradiso ii; etc. Although scholars have suggested before that there are correspondences between same-numbered cantos that beg to be explored, this is the first time that the approach has been pursued in a systematic fashion across the poem." These are available as a free eBook.