Date:
Location:
Reception to follow
Registration is requested
IN-PERSON TICKETS | Members $10 and Visitors $15
LOCATION | The Boston Athenaeum, Henry Long Room
Would you rather join virtually? Please click here.
IN-PERSON LECTURE: Dante at the Athenæum with Christian Dupont
in collaboration with the Friends of the Italian Cultural Center, Boston
Commemorating the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri—the medieval Florentine poet, philosopher, and statesman whose pioneering vernacular Italian epic, the Divine Comedy, remains a classic of world literature—this excursion through the Athenæum’s collections will reveal how members, curators, and benefactors have responded to Dante and his works, and contributed to the broader reception of Dante in America since the early 19th century.
Sculptures and stained glass, paintings and engravings, rare books and artists’ books, travel diaries and letters—each offers its unique witness to the enrapturing embrace of Dante’s vision of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. The stories of their creation and acquisition speak to the animating force of his visual, verbal, and moral imagination. By their recollection, Dante himself will become our guide.
A selection of Dantean highlights from the Athenæum’s collections will be displayed in the Long Room from September through December.
Christian Dupont directs the John J. Burns Library for rare books, special collections and archives at Boston College, and serves as secretary and librarian for the Dante Society of America. His many publications include several studies on the collecting, reading, and illustration of Dante.