Rinascimento

The Zahm collection ranks among the top Dante collections in North America. Purchased for the most part by Zahm in 1902 from the Italian Dantophile Giulio Acquaticci, the 15th- and 16th- century imprints presented here form the heart of Zahm's collection, which totals nearly 3,000 volumes, including rare editions and critical studies from the Renaissance to the present. The nine incunable editions and nearly complete series of 16th-century imprints featured in this exhibit constitute essential primary sources for both the history of Dante's reception during the Renaissance and the early history of the printed book. The concentrated Dante collection at Notre Dame is nicely complemented by the wide-ranging holdings of The Newberry Library in Renaissance literature and history, and especially for the history of printing and publishing. These two rich and varied collections have often been used by Dantists in the Midwest and from abroad. The complementarity of the collections is mirrored in the formal cooperation of Notre Dame and The Newberry Library through the consortium of The Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies, of which Notre Dame has been an active member since 1983. The exhibit was originally held at the Department of Special Collections, University Libraries, University of Notre Dame, October 15 - December 15, 1993 and the Newberry Library between 15 April - 15 June, 1994, and has been produced in expanded form for Internet publication by a collaboration between the William and Katherine Devers Program in Dante Studies, University of Notre Dame and the ARTFL Project of the University of Chicago. The Devers Program, the ARTFL Project, and the Newberry Library are proud to welcome you to Renaissance Dante in Print (1472-1629).

Each illustration contains a considerable amount of contextual material. There has been identified every person, place, deity, creature, and structure shown in every image. The images are also searchable. In addition to the Gallery, The World of Dante includes the Italian text and Allen Mandelbaum's translation of the Divine Comedy marked up in XML; an interactive timeline; an array of maps of Dante's Italy and all three realms of the afterlife; musical recordings of the liturgical chants and hymns mentioned in Purgatory and Paradise; a searchable database; and teaching resources and activities. (Through Institute for Advanced Technologies in the Humanities (IATH), University of Virginia, Deborah Parker)