San Antonio College Library

"The Divine Comedy, completed around 1320, is a supreme work of the imagination. None of Dante's other works, not even all his other works taken together, can rival the Commedia. How did the Florentine exile come to create this masterpiece? What steps in his development can possibly explain the making of this extraordinary poem? Here a preeminent Dante scholar turns to the poet's body of work - the only real biography of Dante that we have - to illuminate...

"Marco Santagata illuminates one of the world's supreme poets from many angles--philosopher, father, courtier, political partisan. He brings together a vast body of Italian scholarship on Dante's medieval world, untangles a complex web of family relationships for English readers, and shows the influence of local and regional politics on his writing."--Provided by publisher.

Unlike many recent "companions" that seek to rewrite and revise traditional scholarship--e.g., The Cambridge Companion to Dostoevskii, ed. by W.J. Leatherborrow (CH, Mar'03, 40-3897)--the second edition of the present title (first ed., 2003) remains a bastion of authoritative scholarship and sound criticism. Jacoff (Wellesley College) adds to the original 14 essays (all of which have been updated) three new contributions. The essays center on five...

"Shining Eyes, Cruel Fortune presents the life stories of twelve extraordinary women who lived passionately and recorded in poetry their happiness and heartbreaks. The setting is the Italian sixteenth century, the cinquecento, the period of the High Renaissance." "This illustrated volume offers insight into how it felt to be a woman in the sixteenth century - if, that is, one was among the aristocracy or upper bourgeoisie, and had more than a rudimentary...