Dante Today
Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary and Popular Culture
Consumer Goods Archive
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Evelyn Paul, Stories from Dante (1911) greeting cards
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, illustrations for the book
Spirit of the Ages greeting cards
Contributed by Virginia Jewiss (Yale Humanities Program)
"Dante's Conundrum" (2009)
"Dante, torn between heaven and hell and between good and evil, must collect the heavenly Soul Jewels to determine his place in the hereafter, along the way Demons will try and thwart Dante by destroying the landscape of purgatory making it impossible to collect the Soul Jewels, but there is good on his side in the form of Cherubs that will lend a hand placing power-ups and special items to help him in his task.
"Will the forces of good win out and lay open the gates to heaven? or will the Denizens of Hell, the vile Demons strike back and force Dante to a Millennia of Torment?, Dante's fate is in your hands, do not fail him.
"Fully Optimized for the iphone 3G and ipod touch, Dante's Conundrum is a fast paced fun filled arcade style puzzle game that will provide hours of not stop action and fun pushing reflexes and mental prowess to the limit, enjoy dazzling graphics and multiple levels of play with the upgraded version or play the first level for free."
http://mobile.e-axis.com/dante/
Contributed by Patrick Molloy
"Dante's Inferno" computer game (and future film?)
http://www.dantesinferno.com/home.action
"Film rights for an Electronic Arts video game that hasn't been released yet were sold to Universal Pictures in an auction that attracted five movie studios, Variety reported. The movie rights for the game, whose working title Variety reported as Dante's Inferno but EA declined to confirm, were sold at an auction in which Paramount, New Regency and MGM also made offers; Warner Brothers had previously dropped out of the bidding process. EA has sold the movie rights for its popular Sims and Mass Effect series and last week optioned the game Army of Two to Universal; both the Dante's Inferno video game and the film are expected to chronicle a journey through hell."
David Itzkoff, The New York Times, November 3, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/arts/television/04arts-VIDEOGAMEDRA_BRF.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y&oref=slogin
see also:
http://www.dantesinferno.com/home.action
See a preview of the game here:
http://www.dantesinferno.com/home.action
Contributed by Chelsea Mikulencak (UTexas-Austin, '10)
and:
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (BUSINESS WIRE)
"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. An abducted soul, a lifetime of sins, a journey to the depths of despair. Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) announced today that EA Redwood Shores, the studio behind the hit horror game Dead Space, is now working on another original property--this one based on the medieval epic poem The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. The dark fiction gave birth to the Tuscan Italian dialect and is widely considered the work that has defined the western world's contemporary conception of hell and purgatory. The poem tells the tale of Dante who journeys through the twisted, menacing nine circles of hell in pursuit of his beloved Beatrice. Dante's tortured and tormented world is an ideal setting for this 3rd person action and adventure of a video game, Dante's Inferno.
"Written in the 14th Century, The Divine Comedy was published and read aloud in Italian (unlike the Bible), thereby making the poem accessible to the mass public. The poem delivers a striking and allegorical vision of the Christian afterlife and the punishments of hell. In part one, known as Dante's Inferno, Dante traverses all nine circles of hell; limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery.
" 'The time is right for the world of interactive entertainment to adapt this literary masterpiece, and to re-introduce Dante to an audience who, until now, may have been unfamiliar with the remarkable details of this great work of art,' said Jonathan Knight, Executive Producer for Dante's Inferno. 'It's the perfect opportunity to fuse great gameplay with great story.' "
http://elmundotech.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/ea-dantes-inferno/
Contributed by J. Patrick Brown (Bowdoin, '08)
and:
Tim Martin, "Fiction reaches a new level: Tim Martin finds the computer game a growing force in literature" Telegraph.co.uk, May 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/5291671/Endpaper---Fiction-reaches-a-new-level.html
Contributed by Aisha Woodward (Bowdoin, '08)
and:
"Fighting Desire in Dante's Inferno. Try not to succumb to your lustful urges in Hell."
Jeff Haynes, September 21, 2009
IGN.com
Contributed by Charlie Russell-Schlesinger (Bowdoin, '08)
and:
Euro Gamer
Contributed by Luke Welch (Bowdoin, '08)
"Vita Nuova" and "Inferno": A compact operating system for building cross-platform distributed systems
http://www.vitanuova.com/company/index.html
http://www.vitanuova.com/index.html
People often ask where the names Plan 9, Inferno, and Vita Nuova originated.
Allegedly, Rob Pike was reading Dante's Divine Comedy when the Computing Science Research Group at Bell Labs was working on Inferno. Inferno is named after the first book of the Divine Comedy, as are many of its components, including Dis, Styx and Limbo.
The company name Vita Nuova continues the association with Dante: his first work, a book of poetry about his childhood sweetheart Beatrice, was called La Vita Nuova. The literal translation of Vita Nuova is "New Life," which in the circumstances is surprisingly prophetic.
Plan 9 is named after the famous Ed Wood movie Plan 9 from Outer Space. There are no other connections except that the striking artwork for the products is a retro, 60s SciFi image modeled on the Plan 9 movie poster.
http://www.vitanuova.com/company/names.html
Contributed by Kavi Montanaro
Dante sneakers for kids
http://www.zazzle.com/dantes_inferno_spookhouse_childrens_customized_shoes-167306289161056251
From a photo by Liza Dey of Dante's Inferno Spookhouse in Coney Island, NY.
See also Gustave Dore' t-shirts, etc.: http://www.zazzle.com/gustave+dore+gifts
Contributed by Virginia Jewiss (Humanities Program, Yale University)
Planet Dante in "Orion's Arm"
http://www.orionsarm.com/worlds/Dante.html
The Orion's Arm Universe Project (also known as OAUP, OA and Orion's Arm) is:
* The next step in the evolution of science-fiction
* A collective hard science fiction world building endeavor
* A space opera
* A communal background for science fiction stories
* A universe ready to be brought to life through illustration
* A forum for cutting edge science
* A roleplaying setting
* A transhumanist projection of what the future might look like
* A bunch of semi-sane sentients having fun together
http://www.orionsarm.com/
"Tuscany" perfume by Aramis
http://www.imagesdeparfums.fr/
Difficult to see, but the "Tuscany per donna" has as its slogan in French "Out of that stream there issued living sparks" (Par. XXX.64) and in English, "It draws fire to the moon" (Par. I.115). The "Tuscany per uomo" has as its slogan, "It moves the sun and the other stars" (last verse of all three canticles).
Contributed by Guy Raffa (University of Texas, Austin)
Inferno Enterprises Architects
Contributed by Ruth Caldwell
Dante in Amsterdam
Contributed by Ben LeHay (Bowdoin, '08)
The 10th Circle
The New Yorker, September 24, 2007
Contributed by Ruth Caldwell
The 7th Heaven
Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2007, p. A2
Contributed by Ruth Caldwell
"The Divine Therapy"
" 'It's an inferno in here,' yelled a middle-aged woman as she plunged into a foul-smelling hot spring in central Italy. She wasn't the first to compare these scorching sulfur baths to Hell. In Canto XIV of Inferno, Dante wanders past a pool oozing with boiling red water and is reminded of these thermal spas about an hour north of Rome 'whose waters are shared with prostitutes.'
...
"That may explain why spas like Bulicame seem to hold more appeal for the locals. In addition to being free, its commercial-free atmosphere and ancient Roman ruins infuse the bath with history. Besides, Dante's journey through Inferno and Bulicame eventually led him to Paradiso."
David Farley, The New York Times, August 26, 2007
http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/travel/26journeys.html?ex=1188792000&en=93bcd9ad4cd1efff&ei=5070&emc=eta1
Background Image: Domenico di Michelino, Dante and His Comedy, 1465
