Virtual Tour: A Contemporary Visual Celebration of Dante’s “Divina Commedia”



UBC’s Department of French, Hispanic and Italian Studies (FHIS) and the Il Centro – Italian Cultural Centre of Vancouver partnered to produce a “Dante Lives!” exhibition surrounding contemporary interpretations of Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia.

Using the contemporary medium of digital photography, 41 students of Italian 101 and 201 at UBC—supervised by Dr. Elena Zampieri and Dr. Chiara Falangola—captured photographs that embody the essence of Dante’s Hell, Purgatory and Heaven in the Divina Commedia. The exhibition also featured two monumental works by BC painter Leslie Poole who, like Dante, grapples with questions of good and evil fundamental to the human condition.

View a virtual tour of the exhibition:

About Dantedí:

The launch of this virtual tour coincides with Dantedí, a day that was first celebrated on March 25th, 2020 in commemoration of Dante Alighieri—the 13th-century Florentine poet who was embraced as a symbol of Italian culture and language, to unite the country at this difficult time during the start of Covid-19. Every year on March 25, the celebrations will continue all day long online and via social media with performances and readings tagged with #Dantedì and #IoleggoDante.