Purgatory & Paradise – Dante (1890s)

S$280.00

Purgatory & Paradise – Dante (1890s)

S$280.00

Title: Purgatory & Paradise

Author: Dante Alighieri, Rev Henry Francis Cary (trans), Gustave Dore (illus)

Publisher: John W. Lovell Company, no date, 1890 or so.

Condition: Hardcover, decorative cloth. Very good. In excellent condition for its age. Slight rubbing to cover, pages tanned. Binding tight, text clean with beautiful plates. Folio sized. A large book, overseas shipping will cost a lot extra.

One of the early Dore editions. Stunning.

About the book (from wikipedia):

The Divine Comedy is an epic poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed 1320, a year before his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem’s imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. This book is part 2 and 3 in a single volume.

On the surface, the poem describes Dante’s travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise or Heaven; but at a deeper level, it represents, allegorically, the soul’s journey towards God. At this deeper level, Dante draws on medieval Christian theology and philosophy, especially Thomistic philosophy and the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas.