The Divine Comedy

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The Divine Comedy, written by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri more than seven hundred years ago, remains one of the world’s most celebrated and enduring masterpieces. It recounts a week-long journey through the three realms of the afterlife: Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. In this book, Danish visual artist Alexander Tovborg and writer Ditlev Tamm bring fresh, contemporary perspectives to Dante’s classic. Over the course of eight years, Tovborg created nearly a hundred vibrant fine-art prints depicting the Comedy’s key episodes and characters. Alongside these images, Ditlev Tamm retells, interprets, and reflects on the narrative in a clear and compelling style while also offering insights into Tovborg’s illustrations as he perceives them. Together, they offer a distinctive and accessible introduction to Dante’s immortal work – one that speaks to readers of all ages.

Alexander Tovborg (b. 1983) is a visual artist and graduate from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe. Religious and mythical symbols, rendered in naïve, simplified forms and embedded in complex and colourful compositions, are recurring motifs in his work, appearing across the media of painting, installation, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, and performance.

Ditlev Tamm (b. 1946) is professor emeritus of Legal History at the University of Copenhagen, PhD, LLD. A member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Tamm is also an author, commentator, and social critic. He has published numerous works on Danish and European history and legal history, political history, biographies, and books on literature, theatre and ballet. He has written on Dante and translated Dante’s De Monarchia and J.L. Borges’s essays on Dante into Danish.