Walking With Dante

I said we'd move on to the second half of Oderisi da Gubbio's speech . . . but there's no way we can. There are still so many unanswered questions about the way Dante cryptically inserts himself into the text, the way the art of miniaturization reflects the new style in poetry that Dante practices, and the very fact that Dante meets someone whose life is spent with manuscripts. Join me, Mark Scarb...

If you'd like to help underwrite this podcast, WALKING WITH DANTE, you can use this PayPal link right here . On Purgatory's terrace of pride, we turn from noble Omberto to an artist, a manuscript illuminator, Oderisi da Gubbio, who delivers some of the most memorable lines in all of PURGATORIO. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through the first half of Oderisi's speech, all about the vagaries...

We've come to the first penitent who speaks after the gate of Purgatory: Omberto Aldobrandesco. He's from a storied, titled family, a nobleman brought low. Or is he? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we hear Omberto's side of the story, try to discern his character through his words, and ponder why Dante makes the first penitent of Purgatory proper so very boring. Here are the segments for this episode...

If you'd like to help out with editing, licensing, streaming, hosting, and website fees for this podcast, please consider donating at this PayPal link right here . Dante the pilgrim has heard the prayer of the prideful penitents under their boulders and now he sees them more clearly, weighed down "as if during dreams." What? It gets more confusing. Dante the poet interrupts the narrative to remind...

Please support this podcast! Help me with streaming, hosting, licensing, and editing fees by donating whatever you can at this PayPal link right here . Dante now hears the first of the penitents of Purgatory proper. They're under their boulders, reciting the foundational of Christianity. Except they're not. They're reciting Dante's rewrite of that prayer. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this curious...

Please consider supporting this podcast by donating to help me cover licensing, hosting, streaming, and editing fees, as well as royalties for the sound effects, by visiting this PayPal link right here . Virgil has prompted the pilgrim Dante to look at the penitents coming around the bend on the first terrace of Purgatory proper. But Dante can't make them out . . . until the poet intervenes with a...

Help support this podcast by donating at this PayPal link right here . Having seen the intaglios, Dante is still in wonder as the first penitents round the bend. Virgil spots them first . . . and murmurs to Dante. Murmurs? It’s a loaded verb in a passage about Dante’s theory of art. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we take on this short passage in PURGATORIO, Canto X, a passage that seams the canto to...

Please consider helping to support WALKING WITH DANTE. You can help me cover streaming, licensing, royalty, hosting, and editing fees by donating whatever you can at this PayPal link right here . Dante goes on to find the last intaglio or relief carving in the austere, too-steep, marble wall of the first terrace of Purgatory. Here, he finds a scene between the Roman emperor Trajan and a sorrowing...

After the intaglio about the annunciation, Dante moves beyond Virgil (or is prodded to move beyond his guide) to discover a second sequence, this time from the story of King David and his journey with the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem. The scene is so realistic that it causes a sensory confusion in our pilgrim. Problem is, his amazement at the realism in the art is based on the poet's fabrica...

Please donate to help support this walk with Dante. You can help me cover licensing, hosting, streaming, editing, and royalty fees by visiting this PayPal link right here . Dante the pilgrim and (shockingly!) Virgil have made it to the first terrace of Purgatory proper, although they (and we?) are still not sure exactly what's going on. All we know is that the terrace has gorgeous carvings in the...

If you'd like to help support this podcast, please consider donating to cover hosting, licensing, and streaming fees by using this PayPal link right here . Dante and Virgil have come through the dramatic gate of Purgatory proper and entered a wildly open space, edging out to the void. This stark emptiness provides an existential contrast to all of the sound and fury that came just before. Join me,...

If you'd like help support this podcast by underwriting its hosting, streaming, royalty, website, and editing fees, please consider donating at this PAYPAL link right here . I hope you're ready for the climb. We've come through the gate of PURGATORY to find ourselves on the first terrace of those actually getting rid of their sins. In this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE, we'll read through my rough...

Help support the work of the podcast by donating to help me cover licensing, royalty, hosting, streaming, and editing fees associated with our walk. You can do so by visiting this PayPal link here . Dante and Virgil finally walk through the gate into Purgatory . . . in one of the most complex endings of any canto in all of COMEDY. There's tragedy and comedy, classical leaning and Christian resolut...

Help keep WALKING WITH DANTE sponsor-free. To help me cover licensing, hosting, streaming, and editing fees, please consider donating through this PayPal link here . Does Dante walk up the steps to the gate of Purgatory? Not without Virgil's help. And then we get a close view of the angel's ashy robes. And then we hear about letters on the forehead. And then we see the two keys. And it all comes d...

Please consider donating to WALKING WITH DANTE to help me cover the costs of streaming, editing, royalties, hosting, and web domains for this podcast. You can do so by visiting this PayPal link right here . We've made it to the steps into Purgatory. In other words, we've made it to an interpretive quagmire. Seven hundred years of scholarship sit on these steps. But maybe there's a way we can clear...

Please help me cover the costs of streaming, editing, hosting, and producing this podcast by visiting this PayPal link right here. Dante seemed so full of confidence when he learned that his dream was indeed only a dream and that Lucy had in fact carried him to the gate of Purgatory. But that was before he faced the angel guardian at the gate, whose forbidding presence seems to silence the pilgrim...

Help me cover the costs for this podcast: its hosting, licensing, streaming, and royalty fees. (Those sound effects require royalties!) You can donate using this PayPal link right here . Dante undergoes a total transformation: from the scared guy who burned up in his dream to the fully confident pilgrim who walks right up to the gate of Purgatory. In the meantime, he asks his reader to change, too...

Help keep WALKING WITH DANTE sponsor-free. Please support this work by donating to cover hosting, streaming, editing, licensing, and other fees associated with this podcast. To do so, please visit this Paypal link right here . Dante awakens in stark terror. But he's beside his constant companion, Virgil. And he's a long way up the mountain, looking far down at the sea. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as...

Help keep WALKING WITH DANTE sponsor-free! Please donate to help me cover hosting, streaming, licensing, royalty, and research fees. You can do so at this PayPal link here . Dante dreams his way to the gate of Purgatory using three classical images that explain his sexual rapture in the presence of divine love but also give his journey a texture of sadness. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for the first...

Help support WALKING WITH DANTE! To help me cover hosting, streaming, licensing, research, and royalty fees (that music costs money!), consider donating to the podcast at this PayPal link . We begin PURGATORIO, Canto IX, with a mess of classical imagery that's befuddled scholars for centuries. We won't come to any conclusions about it, other than to say that such misdirection may be the heart of t...

Help keep WALKING WITH DANTE sponsor-free. Donate to help me cover licensing, streaming, hosting, and royalty fees associated with this podcast. You can donate at this PayPal link here . We're finally at the gate of Purgatory! And it's a corker of a canto, to say the least. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this quick read-through of PURGATORIO, Canto IX, before we take it apart line by line to study...

Help support WALKING WITH DANTE. Please donate to help me cover licensing, hosting, streaming, and research fees, as well as royalties for the music. You can donate at this PayPal link here . We've reached the end of PURGATORIO, Canto VIII, which means we've reached the end of Ante-Purgatory, those cantos and those parts of the mountain before the main gate of Purgatory proper. Here, Dante changes...

Please help keep WALKING WITH DANTE sponsor-free by donating to help me cover licensing, hosting, streaming, and royalty fees associated with this podcast. You can give as you like here at this PayPal link . After Judge Nino's misogynistic diatribe, Dante the pilgrim stares at the stars. The four from the opening of PURGATORIO have passed beyond his sight; three new stars are rising, when the long...

After Dante shocks Judge Nino and the poet Sordello with the revelation of the pilgrim's own corporeality, Judge Nino launches into a disgusting diatribe about his "unfaithful wife," a pernicious bit of misogyny that threatens to derail COMEDY . . . or at least our appreciation of it. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this difficult passage in PURGATORIO, one that must be addressed but leave...

Sordello leads Dante down three steps into the valley of the kings. There, our pilgrim Dante meets Judge Nino, perhaps a figure from the poet Dante's own past, certainly a figure tied to a major character in INFERNO, and a figure who helps our poet "prove" that his journey was indeed real, not imagined. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this descent into the valley of the negligent rulers in...