Modern Language Review

Heir to a long-standing tradition inaugurated by Giovanni Boccaccio, who publicly read the first seventeen cantos of Dante’s Inferno in the church of Santo Stefano di Badia in Florence between October 1373 and January 1374, Voci sull’‘Inferno’ di Dante stands out as the fruitful result of an integral reading of the Inferno, held from March 2019 to March 2021 as a joint initiative between the University of Basel and the University of Notre Dame. Having moved the readings online because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the project directors—Zygmunt G. Barański and Maria Antonietta Terzoli—offered the three-volume publication of the lectura in time for the global celebrations of the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death in 1321. The commitment embodied by the subtitle they chose, which promises a new reading of the Inferno, is met throughout the work.

Those familiar with the genre of the lecturae Dantis were impressed by the novelty of Vertical Readings in Dante’s ‘Comedy’, ed. by George Corbett and Heather Webb, 3 vols (Cambridge: Open Book, 2015–17), which unlocked the fertile potential of reading the Commedia not in the usual canto-by-canto manner, but by commenting on the same-numbered cantos from the poem’s three cantiche. The originality of Voci sull”Inferno’, however, is found elsewhere. Apart from a few, arguably strategic, exceptions (i.e. the lecturae on Cantos v, xii, xix, xxvi, xxxiii, and xxxiv), the internationally renowned dantisti involved in the readings were assigned two cantos in a row. Drawing lines too rigidly or, conversely, exceeding margins too recklessly might prove counterproductive in any work of literary interpretation; this is not the case with Voci sull’‘Inferno’, whose structural formula gives new life to an often static genre. Moreover, as Simon Gilson mentions in his reading of Canto i (and as the reader may see from the programmes of the lecturae included in the third volume, also containing a full bibliography and various indexes), [End Page 395] each encounter envisaged the interpretation of a cluster of cantos, bringing the discussion outside the conventional boundaries of a canto-by-canto reading.

In looking at the ‘duets’ gathered in the first two volumes, the reader will appreciate the greater breadth granted to scholars navigating Dante’s Inferno. This is particularly evident not only in the case of cantos that present a strong continuity, for instance Inferno xv and xvi (read by Catherine M. Keen), or Inferno xxiv and xxv (read by Ambrogio Camozzi Pistoja), but also when approaching cantos that apparently look more isolated, such as Inferno vi and vii (read by Franziska Meier). In its own way, each lectura offers key reflections on both established and recent critical approaches, discusses and sometimes offers a new perspective on hermeneutical cruces, while also setting new research trajectories. For instance, in her reading of Inferno v Terzoli cautiously suggests reading ll. 88–96 and 106–07 as uttered not by Francesca but by Paolo, further developing a view that Guglielmo Gorni supported in 1996 and opposing the mainstream interpretation that considers Francesca the only narrative voice of one of the most famous episodes of Western literature (G. Giorni, ‘Francesca e Paolo: la voce di lui’, Intersezioni, 16 (1996), 383–89).

Another important element of Voci sull’‘Inferno’ is the presence of opening chapters that contextualize the Inferno within Dante’s biography and other works, thus providing a broader view on the place it holds within his intellectual and poetic journey. While the three essays opening the first volume (by Lino Pertile, Paolo Pellegrini, and Michelangelo Zaccarello respectively) concern the Inferno’s reception, popularity, composition, and material transmission, those in the second volume discuss its relation with Vita nuova, Convivio, and De vulgari eloquentia by examining central topics in Dante’s œuvre and scholarship...