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This site has been redesigned.
The new "World of Dante" is
now available, please update your bookmarks.
The World of Dante offers a hypermedia environment for the study of the Inferno. This project is designed to appeal to the different purposes of a wide range of readers, not simply those with scholarly interests. This version of the Inferno is generated by software from a densely encoded electronic text. Unlike other versions of the poem presently online, this copy of the Inferno has been tagged using SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language). Translating poetry into markup entails certain compromises, but we hope that any perceived loss of meaning will be offset by the possibilities the project offers its users to navigate through a considerable amount of data, and to connect this information, or parts of it, in complex ways. Search results are retrieved and presented using DynaWeb, a product of the Inso Corporation. The text and searching enabled by DynaWeb and the underlying SGML demonstrates the potential of electronic resources in the humanities. The materials here are incomplete. This site is still under construction; its purpose is to show and test an interface design for The World of Dante.
Detailed below are the editorial guidelines used to tag the Inferno in this initial stage of the markup. Generally, passages pertaining to persons, geographical sites on Earth and in Hell, mythical creatures, deities, architectural and artistic structures, and Dante's and Virgil's travel through Hell have been tagged. These essentially material features constitute a tractable body of data that span the entire length of the canticle. Generally these features have been tagged when mentioned by their conventionally recognized proper or standard name (e.g. Minos, Satan, Styx, Virgil) and by various devices of language such as circumlocution, epithets, apostrophes, patronyms, matronyms, and toponyms. Hence a character such as Farinata has been tagged not only when he is mentioned by his proper name, but also when Dante refers to him as quell'altro magnanimo ("that great-hearted one") (Inf.10.73). Similarly, circumlocutions designating geographical sites such as the description of the swamp of Styx as questo tristo ruscel ("this sad stream") (Inf.7.102) have also been tagged and identified under the river's regularized form of Styx.
With recurring characters such as Virgil or Beatrice, one can now quickly peruse the myriad appellatives by which these figures are named in the poem. Rapid retrieval and organization of such data can facilitate considerably our understanding of the ways in which Dante employs a wide range of appellatives to construct a character or characterize a specific place. Given that the poetic tradition in which Dante writes prizes the use of circumloction, the notion of naming has been expanded to include appositive statements, non-standard names (e.g. the designation of Piero della Vigna as 'l tronco ["the trunk"] or Maestro Adamo as l'idropico and il monetier ["the dropsied one" "the coiner"], nouns followed by one or more adjective modifiers, and clauses dependent on a relative pronoun when employed in the third person in a description (e.g. the designation of the counterfeiter Maestro Adamo as quel ch'avea infiata l'epa ["the one who had the bloated belly"] [Inf.30.119]), or when used in vocatives (e.g. Virgil addressing the alchemist Griffolino as O tu che con le dita ti dismaglie ["O you who use your nails to strip yourself"] [Inf.29.85]). Characters who are not named, but whose identities are readily deducible have also been tagged (e.g. Dante's allusion to Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti's son as 'l suo nato ["his son"] [Inf.10.11]) is identified as an allusion to Guido Cavalcanti).
Generally, the lines designating an individual, place, or some other entity are confined to passages that do not go beyond the space of a tercet. It is understood that description of an entity may continue beyond a tercet. Among the phrases not tagged are passages pertaining to Dante the pilgrim, casual allusions, usually in the form of demonstrative pronouns, purely referential uses of language, e.g. quell'anima ("that soul"), and long passages spanning several tercets in which devices of languge such as patronyms, toponyms, and circumlocution are not employed. With respect to Virgil, the character for whom Dante employs the most varied appellatives, simple phrases such as il guida ("the guide") or those employing the possessive, e.g. il mio duca ("my leader") have not been tagged.
This copy of the Inferno is also accompanied by a wide variety of visual material. In his essay on Dante's Inferno, T.S. Eliot singles out for praise the poet's visual imagination. Nowhere is Dante's remarkable ability to form clear visual images more apparent than in the Inferno, the most material of the three realms of the Afterlife. Hell's landscapes are constituted of precipitous slopes, barren forests, thunderous waterfalls, filthy, bloody rivers, and torrid burning sands. In order to convey the savage nature of these places Dante often evokes the landscapes of his own Italy. Yet the plethora of contemporary natural, architectural, geographic allusions which constitute Dante's material world are unfamiliar to most readers. The World of Dante seeks to make this remarkable universe more accessible to students of the poem. To this end we have compiled and will continue to assemble photographs, engravings, and illustrations of many of the geographical sites and structures named in the poem. Unlike certain illustrated editions of the Comedy, which often contain only one illustration or photo of a site, The World of Dante often furnishes multiple views. This project is ongoing, and it will take more time to assemble images of geographical sites mentioned in the Inferno. All the images have been keyed to specific line numbers.
It is important to remember that these images are not what the text represents primarily: they are used by Dante in representing something else. For example, Dante's mention of the towers of Monteriggioni in Inf. 31 is accompanied by photos of the fortress. Dante is not trying to make us think primarily of Monteriggioni. He wants readers to keep in mind the effect of Monteriggioni's towers when we visualize the real object represented in the poem--the giants. Dante's comparison of the giants to the towers of Monteriggioni helps underscore key aspects of the giants' appearance--their Gargantuan proportions, their immobility, even their bellicose nature (Monteriggioni was a military fortress). The images are second order representations, instrumental in what the poem represents, but not that representation itself. The visual material furnished in The World of Dante then is intended to help readers better apprehend and ultimately further interrogate the complex nature of Dante's visual imagination.
In addition to photographs of various geographical sites, The World of Dante also includes images of family crests, reconstructions in the form of engravings of some of the towns to which Dante alludes in the Inferno, among them Florence, Bologna, Lucca, Rimini, which depict the towns with the city walls intact as they would have been in the Middle Ages, reproductions of manuscript illuminations, and black and white images of various structures and places scanned from books now in the public domain.
Finally, The World of Dante provides illustrations culled from the Comedy's rich iconographic tradition. The majority of the illustrations come from Gustave Doré's famous 19th-century engravings of the poem as well as the engravings made by an unknown artist for Alessandro Vellutello's 1544 commentary to the Comedy. A tremendous amount of labor has gone into offering the highest possible quality of the Doré engravings. Unlike other versions of the Comedy currently online that feature some of Doré's illustrations, this copy of the Inferno keys the illustrations to the exact passages depicted by Doré and other artists. Viewed in conjunction with the photographs of geographical sites, engravings of towns, and maps, we hope these illustrations will enhance readers' appreciation of Dante's remarkable visual imagination, and the responses it has inspired in artists.
Additional Online Materials on Dante: