Undusted Texts

Dante's Divine Comedy quickly attracted commentaries on its intricacies, beginning with Dante himself (in his Epistle to Can Grande , often labelled Epistle XIII).  The earliest commentary was by Dante's son Jacopo (1285-1348), in Italian; a Latin commentary was later written by another son, Pietro (d. 1364). Pietro kept revising his commentary throughout his life, becoming a miniature of the Renaissance, in a way.  The earliest version—out of the three distinct ones that have been preserved—is rich in Patristic and theological references; as time went on, these references gave way to classical references, as the burgeoning Renaissance spurred an increase in studies of and love for the classics.   In 2002, Massimiliano Chiamenti edited the third version of Pietro's Commentary ; from that edition, I have translated the introduction, which serves as both an introduction to the whole Comedy as well as to the Inferno in particular. Academia.edu Direct Download

To pair with this blog, I've finally launched a basic author page at Undusted Texts .  It provides little-to-no information not already found on this blog, but it is arranged in a different way.  The key benefit to the author page is that it includes self-hosted copies of many of my articles, translations, and essays, so that potential readers no longer have to head to Academia.edu or Internet Archive to find them.  Browse through the Publications page and its subsections to find them.  I will also add links to these direct downloads at relevant locations on this blog.