Throughout the Divine Comedy, Dante reveals a great deal about the nature of love. His poetic expressions continue to inspire us today and encourage us to reflect on what love truly means. This project seeks to explore the question – "What is love?" – as portrayed in the Divine Comedy, and to translate Dante’s expressions of love into contemporary art.
From the beginning, it became clear that love can never be fully understood, or experienced in its entirety because its essence is beyond human comprehension. Just as the souls in the Empyrean offer Dante only a glimpse of the divine, anything that I draw illustrating love can only be, at best, a reflection – a simulacrum – of its perfection.
My objective is to bridge the medieval thoughts of this Tuscan poet with the modern world, offering a re-enchantment of contemporary understandings of love through an artistic lens. By combining a rational analysis of love (through academic scholarship) with the aesthetic (drawn from Dante's poetry and my visual art), I hope to offer a glimpse into one of the noblest Truths.
In the end, for Dante, love is the divine force that moves both heaven and earth. “L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.” (“Love that moves the sun and the other stars.”) (Paradiso 33:145) All human actions are directed by love, whether those actions originate from pure love towards goodness or from love distorted through error, and therefore, evil. With free will, humans are responsible for their own actions, and consequently must face the repercussions of their decisions.
Excerpt from the 2026 Exhibition
Divine Love & Love as Phileo
Inferno 4
«La bella scola»
Set in "prato di fresca verdura" (a meadow of green flowering plants) [Inf. 4.111], the group of souls—referred to as "la selva… di spiriti spessi" (the wood … where many spirits thronged) [Inf. 4.66]—includes Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. Homer leads, “... con quella spada in mano” (with sword in hand) [Inf. 4.86] …
The first artwork depicting Inferno 5 portrays Paolo and Francesca in a garden, reading a courtly love text, specifically the Arthurian romance of Lancelot. This scene represents a throwback to the moment when they committed the sin that ultimately cast them into Hell …
This artwork illustrates the contrapasso for the lustful: “i peccator carnali, / che la ragion sommettono al talento” (“the carnal sinners, who subjugate reason to desire” [Inf. 5.38-9]). Lust, for Dante, is a misalignment of faculties, where passion rules over reason …
In Inferno 6, Virgil and Dante arrive in the third circle of hell which holds the gluttons. Upon their arrival, Virgil throws a fistful of earth into the “bramose canne” (famished jaws) [Inf.6.27] of the three-headed dog, Cerberus, who devours it. This scene is in homage to Book 6 of the Aeneid in which Virgil throws a honey cake at the three-headed guardian of the underworld. However, Cerberus is not the main focus of this scene - Florence is! Even though the beginning of this canto depicts literal gluttony, Dante metaphorically accuses Florence of being gluttonous for dominion and power ...
