The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri is an epic poem in Italian written between 1308 and 1321 that describes its author's journey through the Christian afterlife. [1] The three cantiche [lower-roman 1] of the poem, Inferno , Purgatorio , and Paradiso , describe Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, respectively. The poem is considered one of the greatest works of world literature [2] and helped establish Dante's Tuscan dialect as the standard form of the Italian language. [3] It has been translated over 400 times into at least 52 different languages. [4]
Though English poets Geoffrey Chaucer and John Milton referenced and partially translated Dante's works in the 14th and 17th centuries, respectively, [5] [6] it took until the early 19th century for the first full English translation of the Divine Comedy to be published. [7] This was over 300 years after the first Latin (1416), [8] Spanish (1515), [4] and French (1500s) [9] translations had been completed. By 1906, Dante scholar Paget Toynbee calculated that the Divine Comedy had been touched upon by over 250 translators [10] and sixty years later bibliographer Gilbert F. Cunningham observed that the frequency of English Dante translations was increasing with time. [11] As of 2023 [update] , the Divine Comedy has been translated into English more times than it has been translated into any other language. [4]
A complete listing and criticism of all English translations of at least one of the three cantiche (parts) was made by Cunningham in 1966. [12] The table below summarises Cunningham's data with additions between 1966 and the present, many of which are taken from the Dante Society of America's yearly North American bibliography [13] and Società Dantesca Italiana 's international bibliography. [14] Many more translations of individual lines or cantos [lower-roman 2] exist, [15] but these are too numerous for the scope of this list.
Published | Translator | Nationality | Publisher(s) | Parts translated | Form [lower-roman 3] | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1782 | Charles Rogers | United Kingdom | J. Nichols | Inferno | Blank verse | First translation of a full cantica into English. Initially published anonymously [17] |
1785–1802 | Henry Boyd | United Kingdom | C. Dilly | Comedy i.e. all three parts | Rhymed 6-line stanzas | First full translation of the Divine Comedy in English |
1805–1814 | Henry Francis Cary | United Kingdom | James Carpenter | Comedy | Blank verse | Volume 20 in the Harvard Classics series. Reprinted by Bohn's Library in 1850 and Chandos Classics in 1871 Described by The Cambridge Companion to Dante as the first "powerful, accurate, and poetically moving" translation. Became a bestseller and was required in schools [18] |
1807 | Nathaniel Howard | United Kingdom | John Murray | Inferno | Blank verse | |
1812 | Joseph Hume | United Kingdom | T. Cadell and W. Davies | Inferno | Blank verse | |
1833–1840 | Ichabod Charles Wright | United Kingdom | Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman | Comedy | Rhymed 6-line stanzas | |
1843–1865 | John Dayman | United Kingdom | Longmans, Green, and Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1843–1893 | Thomas William Parsons | United States | De Vries, Ibarra and Company; Houghton, Mifflin and Company | Comedy (incomplete) | Quatrains and irregular rhyme | |
1849 | John Aitken Carlyle | United Kingdom | Chapman and Hall | Inferno | Prose | First British prose translation of Inferno . Reprinted by J.M. Dent and Sons and edited by Hermann Oelsner for their Temple Classics line in 1900 |
1850 | Patrick Bannerman | United Kingdom | William Blackwood and Sons | Comedy | Irregular rhyme | |
1851–1854 | Charles Bagot Cayley | United Kingdom | Longmans, Brown, Green, and Longmans | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1852 | E. O'Donnell | United Kingdom | Thomas Richardson and Son | Comedy | Prose | First British prose translation of the whole Divine Comedy . |
1854 | Thomas Brooksbank | United Kingdom | John W. Parker and Son | Inferno | Terza rima | |
1854 | Sir William Frederick Pollock | United Kingdom | Chapman and Hall | Comedy | Blank tercets | |
1859 | Bruce Whyte | United Kingdom | Wright & Co.; Simpkin, Marshall, & Co | Inferno | Irregular rhyme | |
1859–1866 | John Wesley Thomas | United Kingdom | Henry G. Bohn | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1862 | William Patrick Wilkie | United Kingdom | Edmonston and Douglas | Inferno | Blank tercets | |
1862–1863 | Claudia Hamilton Ramsay [lower-roman 4] | United Kingdom | Tinsley Brothers | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1865 | William Michael Rossetti | United Kingdom | Macmillan and Co. | Inferno | Blank tercets | |
1865–1870 | James Ford | United Kingdom | Smith, Elder & Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1867 | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | United States | Ticknor and Fields and Bernhard Tauchnitz | Comedy | Blank tercets | First complete translation by an American author. Highly praised upon publication [20] and remains one of the most commonly reprinted translations in both the United States and the United Kingdom [21] |
1867–1868 | David Johnston | United Kingdom | Self-published | Comedy | Blank tercets | Never placed on sale; the author sent copies directly to libraries and friends [22] |
1877 | Charles Tomlinson | United Kingdom | S.W. Partridge and Co. | Inferno | Terza rima | |
1880–1892 | Arthur John Butler | United Kingdom | Macmillan and Co. | Comedy | Prose | |
1881 | Warburton Pike | United Kingdom | C. Kegan Paul & Co. | Inferno | Terza rima | |
1883 | William Stratford Dugdale | United Kingdom | George Bell & Sons | Purgatorio | Prose | |
1884 | James Romanes Sibbald | United Kingdom | David Douglas | Inferno | Terza rima | |
1885 | James Innes Minchin | United Kingdom | Longmans, Green, and Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1886–1887 | Edward Hayes Plumptre | United Kingdom | Wm. Isbister Limited | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1887 | Frederick Kneller Haselfoot Haselfoot | United Kingdom | Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1888 | John Augustine Wilstach | United States | Houghton, Mifflin and Company | Comedy | Rhymed stanzas | |
1889–1900 | William Warren Vernon | United Kingdom | Macmillan & Co. | Comedy | Prose | |
1891–1892 | Charles Eliot Norton | United States | Houghton, Mifflin and Company | Comedy | Prose | First American prose translation of the whole Divine Comedy . Revised in 1902 |
1892–1915 | Charles Lancelot Shadwell | United Kingdom | Macmillan & Co. | Purgatorio and Paradiso | Marvellian stanzas | |
1893 | George Musgrave | United Kingdom | Swan Sonnenschein & Co. | Inferno | Spenserian stanzas | |
1893 | Edward Sullivan [lower-roman 5] | United Kingdom | Elliot Stock | Inferno | Prose | |
1895 | Robert Urquhart | United Kingdom | Privately printed | Inferno | Terza rima | Bibliographer Gilbert F. Cunningham inferred that "Macmillan [& Co.] arranged for the production of the book, but decided not to publish it" [24] |
1898 | Eugene Jacob Lee-Hamilton | United Kingdom | Grant Richards | Inferno | Hendecasyllabic blank tercets | |
1899 | Philip Henry Wicksteed | United Kingdom | J.M. Dent & Sons | Paradiso | Prose | Edited by Herman Oelsner for Temple Classics |
1899 | Arthur Compton Auchmuty | United Kingdom | Williams and Norgate | Purgatorio | Octosyllabic terza rima | |
1899–1901 | Samuel Home | United Kingdom | Woodall, Minshall, and Co. | Purgatorio (incomplete: I–XXXI only) | Hendecasyllabic blank tercets | |
1901 | Thomas Okey | United Kingdom | J.M. Dent & Sons | Purgatorio | Prose | Edited by Herman Oelsner for Temple Classics |
1901 | John Carpenter Garnier | United Kingdom | Truslove, Hanson & Combe | Inferno | Prose | |
1902 | Edward Clarke Lowe | United Kingdom | G. H. Tyndall | Comedy | Blank tercets | |
1903–1909 | Edward Wilberforce | United Kingdom | Macmillan and Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1903–1911 | Sir Samuel Walker Griffith | United Kingdom | Powell and Co. | Comedy | Hendecasyllabic blank tercets | |
1904 | Caroline C. Potter | United Kingdom | Digby, Long & Co. | Purgatorio and Paradiso | Rhymed quatrains | |
1904 | Henry Fanshawe Tozer | United Kingdom | Clarendon Press | Comedy | Prose | |
1904 | Marvin Richardson Vincent | United States | Charles Scribner's Sons | Inferno | Blank verse | |
1905 | Charles Gordon Wright | United Kingdom | Methuen & Co. | Purgatorio | Prose | |
1908 | Frances Isabella Fraser | United Kingdom | S.W. Simms | Paradiso | Blank tercets | |
1910 | Agnes Louisa Money | United Kingdom | George Allen & Sons | Purgatorio | Blank tercets | |
1911 | Charles Edwin Wheeler | United Kingdom | J.M. Dent & Sons | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1914 | Edith Mary Shaw | United Kingdom | Constable and Company | Comedy | Blank verse | |
1915 | Edward Joshua Edwardes | United Kingdom | Women's Printing Society | Inferno | Blank tercets | |
1915 | Sir Samuel Griffith | Australia | Oxford University Press | Comedy | Unrhymed hendecasyllabic verse | First translation by an Australian author [25] |
1915 | Henry Johnson | United States | Yale University Press; Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press | Comedy | Blank tercets | |
1918–1921 | Courtney Langdon | United States | Harvard University Press | Comedy | Blank verse | |
1920 | Eleanor Vinton Murray | United States | Self-published | Inferno | Terza rima | |
1921 | Melville Best Anderson | United States | World Book Company; Yonkers-on-Hydon; George G. Harrap & Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | Reprinted in Oxford World's Classics with an introduction from Paget Toynbee in 1932 |
1922 | Henry John Hooper | United Kingdom | George Routledge and Sons | Inferno | Amphibrachic tetrameter | |
1927 | David James MacKenzie | United Kingdom | Longmans, Green and Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1928–1931 | Albert R. Bandini | United States (born in Italy) | The People's Publishing Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1928–1954 | Sydney Fowler Wright | United Kingdom | Fowler Wright Ltd.; Oliver and Boyd | Inferno and Purgatorio | Irregularly rhymed decasyllables | |
1931 | Jefferson Butler Fletcher | United States | The Macmillan Company | Comedy | Defective terza rima | |
1931 | Lacy Lockert | United States | Princeton University Press | Inferno | Terza rima | |
1932–1935 | Geoffrey Langdale Bickersteth | United Kingdom | Cambridge University Press | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1933–1943 | Laurence Binyon | United Kingdom | Macmillan and Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1934–1940 | Louis How | United States | The Harbor Press | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1938 | Ralph Thomas Bodey | United Kingdom | Harold Cleaver | Comedy | Blank verse | |
1939–1946 | John Dickson Sinclair | United Kingdom | The Bodley Head | Comedy | Prose | Republished by Oxford University Press in 1948 |
1948 | Lawrence Grant White | United States | Pantheon Books | Comedy | Blank verse | |
1948 | Patrick Cummins | United States | B. Herder Book Co. | Comedy | Hendecasyllabic terza rima | |
1949–1953 | Harry Morgan Ayres | United States | S. F. Vanni | Comedy | Prose | |
1949–1962 | Dorothy L. Sayers | United Kingdom | Penguin Books | Comedy | Terza rima | Printed in Penguin Classics. After Sayers' death in 1957, the final cantos of Paradiso were completed by Barbara Reynolds. |
1952 | Thomas Weston Ramsey | United Kingdom | The Hand and Flower Press | Paradiso | Defective terza rima | |
1954 | Howard Russell Huse | United States | Rinehart | Comedy | Prose | |
1954–1970 | John Ciardi | United States | New American Library | Comedy | Defective terza rima | Audio version of Inferno recorded and released by Folkways Records in 1954 [26] |
1956 | Glen Levin Swiggett | United States | University Press of the University of the South | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1958 | Mary Prentice Lillie | United States | Grabhorn Press | Comedy | Hendecasyllabic blank tercets | |
1961 | Warwick Fielding Chipman | United Kingdom | Oxford University Press | Inferno | Terza rima | |
1962 | Clara Stillman Reed | United States | Self-published | Comedy | Prose | |
1965 | William F. Ennis | United Kingdom | Il Campo Editore | Comedy | Dodecasyllabic terza rima | |
1965 | Aldo Maugeri | Italy | La Sicilia | Inferno | Blank tercets | First English translation of Inferno to be published in Italy. |
1966 | Louis Biancolli | United States | Washington Square Press | Comedy | Blank verse | |
1966 | G. W. Greene | United States | Italica | Inferno (incomplete) | Blank verse | Contains only thirty-one of the Inferno's thirty-four cantos; Greene died in 1883 without publishing the work [27] |
1966 | BBC Third Programme | United Kingdom | British Broadcasting Corporation | Inferno |
| Contains work from twelve translators who presented their translations on the BBC Third Programme [28] |
1967–2002 | Mark Musa | United States | Penguin Books | Comedy | Blank verse | Second Penguin Classics translation |
1969 | Thomas Goddard Bergin | United States | Grossman Publishers | Comedy | Blank verse | |
1969 | Allan Gilbert | United States | Duke University Press | Inferno | Prose | |
1970–1975 | Charles S. Singleton | United States | Princeton University Press | Comedy | Prose | Literal prose translation. Published as six volumes, with one volume of translation facing Italian text and one volume of commentary for each cantica |
1979 | Kenneth R. Mackenzie | United Kingdom | The Folio Society | Comedy | Verse | Contains engravings from John Flaxman |
1980–1984 | Allen Mandelbaum | United States | Bantam Books | Comedy | Blank verse | Mandelbaum was awarded a Gold Medal of Honor from the city of Florence for his translation. [29] Certain editions contain illustrations from Barry Moser. |
1981 | C. H. Sisson | United Kingdom | Oxford World's Classics | Comedy | Free tercets | |
1983 | Tom Phillips | United Kingdom | Waddington Graphics | Inferno | Verse | Contains original prints by Phillips |
1985 | Nicholas Kilmer | United States | Branden Publishing Co. | Inferno | Blank verse [30] | |
1987 | James Finn Cotter | United States | Amity House | Comedy | Blank verse | |
1990 | Tibor Wlassics | Hungary (published and written in the United States) | In Print Inc. | Inferno | Blank verse | |
1993 | James S. Torrens, S.J. | United States | University of Scranton Press; University of London Press: University of Toronto Press | Paradiso | Blank verse | |
1994 | Steve Ellis | United Kingdom | Chatto & Windus [31] | Inferno | Blank verse | |
1994 | Stephen Wentworth Arndt | United States | The Edwin Mellen Press | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1994 | Robert Pinsky | United States | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | Inferno | Terza rima | |
1996 | Peter Dale | United Kingdom | Anvil Press Poetry | Comedy | Terza rima | |
1996–2007 | Robert M. Durling | United States | Oxford University Press | Comedy | Prose | |
1997–1998 | Kathryn Lindskoog | United States | Mercer University Press | Comedy | Prose | Advertised as a "retelling" rather than direct translation |
1998 | Elio Zappulla | United States | Random House | Inferno | Blank verse | |
2000 | Stanley Appelbaum | United States | Dover Publications | Comedy (partial) | Free verse | Contains a total of thirty-three cantos selected from different cantiche |
2000 | Armand Schwerner | United States | Talisman House | Inferno (incomplete) | Blank verse | Contains only twelve cantos; Schwerner died before he could finish the translation [32] |
2000 | W. S. Merwin | United States | Knopf | Purgatorio | Blank verse | |
2000 | A. S. Kline | United States | Poetry in translation | Comedy | Prose | |
2000–2007 | Jean and Robert Hollander | United States | Anchor Books | Comedy | Free verse [33] | Known for its extensive scholarly notes; the full text is over 600 pages. [34] The Hollanders were given a Gold Florin award from the city of Florence for their translation. [35] |
2002 | Ciaran Carson | Ireland (published in the United Kingdom) | Granta Books | Inferno | Terza rima | First Irish translation of Inferno . |
2002–2008 | Michael Palma | United States | W.W. Norton | Comedy | Terza rima | |
2002–2004 | Anthony M. Esolen | United States | Modern Library Classics | Comedy | Blank verse | |
2005–2012 | J. Gordon Nichols | United Kingdom | Alma Books | Comedy | Defective terza rima | |
2006–2007 | Robin Kirkpatrick | United Kingdom | Penguin Books | Comedy | Blank verse | Third Penguin Classics translation |
2007 | Frank Salvidio | United States | iUniverse (self-published) | Inferno | Free tercets | |
2007–2017 | Tom Simone | United States | Focus-Hackett Publishing | Comedy | Free verse | |
2009–2017 | Stanley Lombardo | United States | Hackett Classics | Comedy | Blank tercets | |
2010 | Burton Raffel | United States | Northwestern World Classics | Comedy | Terza rima | |
2011 | Robert M. Torrance | United States | Xlibris (self-published) | Inferno | Terza rima | |
2013–2021 | Mary Jo Bang | United States | Graywolf Press | Inferno, Purgatorio (Paradiso in progress as of November 2021 [36] ) | Free verse | Text of poem contains anachronistic references to figures such as Sigmund Freud, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Stephen Colbert [37] |
2013 | Clive James | Australia (written in the United Kingdom) | Picador | Comedy | Quatrains | |
2017 | Peter Thornton | United States | Arcade Publishing | Inferno | Blank verse | |
2018–2020 | Alasdair Gray | United Kingdom | Canongate Books | Comedy | Prosaic verse | Renders "Ghibelline" and "Guelph" as "Tory" and "Whig" respectively |
2020–2021 | David Macleod Black | United Kingdom (born in South Africa) | New York Review Books | Purgatorio | Blank verse | |
2021 | Ned Denny | United Kingdom | Carcanet | Comedy | Long, loosely-rhyming couplets in twelve-line, 144-syllable stanzas (an average of nine per canto). | A "poet's version... in the interpretative tradition of Chapman, Dryden and Pope", and titled B: After Dante (with the canticas becoming Blaze, Bathe and Bliss). |
2021 | Gerald J. Davis | United States | Insignia Publishing | Comedy | Prose | |
2022 | J. Simon Harris | United States | Nostra Vita Books | Inferno | Terza rima | |
2022-2023 | Joe Carlson | United States | Roman Roads Press | Comedy | Blank Verse |
Dante Alighieri, widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian poet, writer, and philosopher. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.
The Divine Comedy is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of Western literature. The poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval worldview as it existed 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.
Terza rima is a rhyming verse form, in which the poem, or each poem-section, consists of tercets with an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme: The last word of the second line in one tercet provides the rhyme for the first and third lines in the tercet that follows. The poem or poem-section may have any number of lines, but it ends with either a single line or a couplet, which repeats the rhyme of the middle line of the previous tercet.
Allen Mandelbaum was an American professor of literature and the humanities, poet, and translator from Classical Greek, Latin and Italian. His translations of classic works gained him numerous awards in Italy and the United States.
Purgatorio is the second part of Dante's Divine Comedy, following the Inferno and preceding the Paradiso. The poem was written in the early 14th century. It is an allegory telling of the climb of Dante up the Mount of Purgatory, guided by the Roman poet Virgil – except for the last four cantos, at which point Beatrice takes over as Dante's guide. Allegorically, Purgatorio represents the penitent Christian life. In describing the climb Dante discusses the nature of sin, examples of vice and virtue, as well as moral issues in politics and in the Church. The poem posits the theory that all sins arise from love – either perverted love directed towards others' harm, or deficient love, or the disordered or excessive love of good things.
The Dante Club is a mystery novel by Matthew Pearl and his debut work, set amidst a series of murders in the American Civil War era. It also concerns a club of poets, including such historical figures as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., and James Russell Lowell, who are translating Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy from Italian into English and who notice parallels between the murders and the punishments detailed in Dante's Inferno.
In Dante's Inferno, contrapasso is the punishment of souls "by a process either resembling or contrasting with the sin itself." A similar process occurs in the Purgatorio.
Belacqua is a minor character in Dante Alighieri's Purgatorio, Canto IV. He is considered the epitome of indolence and laziness, but he is nonetheless saved from the punishment of Hell in Inferno and often viewed as a comic element in the poem for his wit. The relevance of Belacqua is also driven by Samuel Beckett's strong interest in this character.
The Divine Comedy has been a source of inspiration for artists, musicians, and authors since its appearance in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Works are included here if they have been described by scholars as relating substantially in their structure or content to the Divine Comedy.
In Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, the City of Dis encompasses the sixth through the ninth circles of Hell.
Giovanni di Buiamonte was a Florentine nobleman who lived in the late 13th century around the time of Giotto and Dante. He was highly esteemed in the Florence of his day as “the sovereign cavalier", and was chosen for many high offices.
Inferno is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century narrative poem The Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Inferno describes the journey of a fictionalised version of Dante himself through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the "realm [...] of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen". As an allegory, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin.
Paradiso is the third and final part of Dante's Divine Comedy, following the Inferno and the Purgatorio. It is an allegory telling of Dante's journey through Heaven, guided by Beatrice, who symbolises theology. In the poem, Paradise is depicted as a series of concentric spheres surrounding the Earth, consisting of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, the Primum Mobile and finally, the Empyrean. It was written in the early 14th century. Allegorically, the poem represents the soul's ascent to God.
Bel paese is the classical poetical appellative for Italy, meaning the 'beautiful country' in Italian, due to its mild weather, cultural heritage and natural endowment.
The Malebranche are the demons in the Inferno of Dante's Divine Comedy who guard Bolgia Five of the Eighth Circle (Malebolge). They figure in Cantos XXI, XXII, and XXIII. Vulgar and quarrelsome, their duty is to force the corrupt politicians (barrators) to stay under the surface of a boiling lake of pitch.
Ptolemy son of Abubus was an official in the early Hasmonean kingdom which then controlled Judea. According to the book of 1 Maccabees, in 135 BC, he served as the governor of Jericho. While High Priest Simon Thassi was visiting, Ptolemy orchestrated the murder of Simon and two of his sons, as well as some of Simon's servants. This act of betrayal of guest right earned Ptolemy a place in Dante's The Divine Comedy; one of the sections of the ninth layer of hell described in Inferno is called Ptolomea, where those who betray guests in their home suffer.
Jacopo Alighieri was an Italian poet, the son of Dante Alighieri, whom he followed in his exile. Jacopo's most famous work is his sixty-chapter Dottrinale. He is represented by his father in the Paradiso of the Divine Comedy as Saint James along with Saint Peter and Saint John the Evangelist, representing his brothers Pietro and Giovanni.
The Dante Society of America is an American academic society devoted to the study of Dante Alighieri. One of the oldest scholarly societies in North America, it predates both the Modern Language Association, founded in 1883, and the American Historical Association, founded in 1884. After the German Dante Society, it is the second-oldest scholarly organization devoted to the study of Dante. The Society was also one of the first scholarly societies in the United States to have women among its founding members. The current president is Alison Cornish of New York University.
Ghisolabella Caccianemico, also known as Ghislabella or Ghisolabella dei Caccianemici, was a noblewoman from a prominent Guelph family from Bologna. She was married to Niccolò dei Fontana, a nobleman from Ferrara, but she is primarily known for having been sold into prostitution to Obizzo II d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara by her brother, Venedico Caccianemico. Ghisolabella's story was famously included by Dante Alighieri in his poem, the Divine Comedy.
It is not to Mr. Longfellow's reputation only that these volumes will add, but to that of American literature. It is no little thing to be able to say, that, in a field in which some of England's great poets have signally failed, an American poet has signally succeeded ; that what the scholars of the Old World asserted to be impossible, a scholar of the New World has accomplished ; and that the first to tread in this new path has impressed his footprints so deeply therein, that, however numerous his followers may be, they will all unite in hailing him...