Why Dante’s work still matters, 700 years on

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Why Dante’s work still matters, 700 years on

By Kerrie O'Brien

Human nature doesn’t change even though the world changes around us, says Anna Welch, curator at the State Library of Victoria. That’s why Dante matters, still, seven centuries after his death.

Artist Angela Cavalieri has been working on lino cuts and limited edition books about Dante for years.

Artist Angela Cavalieri has been working on lino cuts and limited edition books about Dante for years.Credit: Justin McManus

Much like Shakespeare, the Italian poet and philosopher Dante Alighieri has staying power; The Divine Comedy, his most famous work, speaks to what makes us human and how to live a good life.

Welch, senior librarian (history of the book and arts) and World of the Book co-curator, says the Italian poet’s work resonates on many levels. “There’s so much in there that is timeless and speaks to the human condition,” she says. “You can dive into this poem and read the whole thing or dive in and out and find inspiration and resonances with struggles you face in your own life.”

This year marks 700 years since Dante’s death and to commemorate the State Library of Victoria has devoted part of its World of the Book exhibition to his work, with a mix of current and historic works on display. In a world first, contemporary Australian artists including Udo Sellbach, Alex Selenitsch, Bruno Leti and Angela Cavalieri and Peter Lyssiotis are represented.

Dante’s Divine Comedy “conjures images; grab it and open any page, you can relate to something that’s happening now. I find it very contemporary,” says Cavalieri, who has been making work inspired by Dante for nearly two decades.

Lyssiotis and Cavalieri have collaborated on three art books, Lyssiotis writing poems referencing the great Florentine’s work and Cavalieri creating visual art using them.

A page from Angela Cavalieri and Peter Lyssiotis’ Hell, from – 1316, Melbourne, Masterthief Enterprises, 2004, Rare Books Collection, State Library Victoria.

A page from Angela Cavalieri and Peter Lyssiotis’ Hell, from – 1316, Melbourne, Masterthief Enterprises, 2004, Rare Books Collection, State Library Victoria. Credit: Angela Cavalieri and Peter Lyssiotis

Their series of limited edition books – just 10 of each – were acquired by the SLV and are divided by the poem’s three chapters: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. For the first, their starting point was the circle, based on the idea of the nine circles of hell. For Purgatory, they chose the triangle, inspired by Dante’s Mt Purgatory and its seven terraces, which equate to the seven deadly sins.

Artists in general have shied away from final chapter of the poem, perhaps because of its relative calm. When working on book three, which did take them longer than the first two, Cavalieri joked to Lyssiotis that “it’s hard going to Paradise”.

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“I like the idea of continuing Dante’s journey in the three books – exploring and learning and going back to other artists who used it,” she says. “For us, it was a learning process, we worked and developed our practice through it as well.”

Dante from Tom Phillips’ Inferno (Talfourd Press, 1983)  

Dante from Tom Phillips’ Inferno (Talfourd Press, 1983)   Credit: Tom Phillips/DACS. Copyright Agency, 2021

The exhibition also includes a major new acquisition for the Library – Tom Phillips’ Dante’s Inferno (1983), one of the most significant artist’s books of the 20th century – and two prints by William Blake, on loan from the National Gallery of Victoria.

When he wrote The Divine Comedy, Dante was in exile from his beloved Florence; his politics had seen him banished, ostensibly on charges of corruption. “There’s a real poignancy and a really personal element to those opening lines, about finding yourself in exile, essentially. And not knowing where to go,” Welch says.

Many of the Australian artists who have responded to the poem have European heritage, she says, and they have known what it is to be a stranger in a different place. “There’s a resonance there for many Australians in that regard. We are all in exile in some way at the moment – no one can come in and no one can go out.”

Dante was one of the first people to write in his own vernacular. According to Welch, that’s a big part of why the poem was so popular in his lifetime. “He is similar to Geoffrey Chaucer in English, we would speak of him in the same way. He too made that choice to write in his spoken everyday language, not in the language of learning, which was Latin.”

There are more than 400 surviving manuscripts of the poem from the 1400s, which indicates its popularity. Sandro Botticelli was the first artist to illustrate it in 1481, followed by countless others, notably William Blake, Gustave Doré and, more recently, Salvador Dali.

Portrait of Italian poet, politician and author Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321), early 14th Century.

Portrait of Italian poet, politician and author Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321), early 14th Century. Credit: Stock Montage/Getty Images

Classical music station 3MBS recently staged a two-week special devoted to the many musical works inspired by Dante’s most famous poem, which is accessible online. Its curator Margot Costanzo says one compelling reason for women to care about the 14th century poet is “the utterly modern depiction of Beatrice ... always a symbol of moral purity and beauty for Dante.”

While it’s a great poem to read, with many translations into English, there are a range of ways to access the work. Actor Roberto Benigni does an excellent rendition of the poem from memory – no mean feat given its length on Youtube, there are graphic novels available and even children’s versions.

“He casts a long shadow immediately after his lifetime and that’s something that reaches down to us today,” says Welch. “It’s a poem for the times – whether you feel like you’re in purgatory or some days in hell, or maybe in paradise.”

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“I find it a very cathartic poem to read at the moment. It goes back to the archetypal nature of the experiences people have, the frailties of the people who are suffering in hell. The poem is notable for the way Dante doesn’t pass judgement – people who are suffering in hell for sins that are bad enough to have relegated them to hell, he writes of them with some compassion, like the adulterous lovers, Paolo and Francesca. He is kind to them and sympathetic to their plight. As a writer, he is gifted at that kind of empathetic insight into the charcters he creates and that is what is satisfying as a reader.”

Cavalieri says she’s not finished with the great Italian poet just yet. “To me he is someone who is just there, he is present in everyday life.”

See more at slv.vic.gov.au/stories/dante-700; and for the classical music festival at 3mbsdante700festival.org.au

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