Published: May 2013
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In February 2000, a group of local Dante scholars and aficionados led by Laurie Shepard, a Boston College associate professor of Romance languages and literatures, and Emilio Mazzola, a teacher at Newton North High School, began a public reading of Dante’s epic poem, The Divine Comedy. For 13 years, at meetings held in Devlin 101 two or three times a semester, a presenter offered a critical commentary of the canto under consideration, then read the canto in the original Italian. In all, 98 individuals from around the country (and as far away as Cambridge University) came to parse and perform the poem’s 100 cantos. We present a sampling of the readings from “Paradiso.”
Presenters, in order of appearance:
Emilio Mazzola, Federica Anichini, Todd Boli, Laurie Shepard, Dario Del Puppo, Joseph Luzzi, Giuseppe Faustini, Adoyo Owuor, Francesco Castellano, Giovanni Spani, Michael Papio, Francesca Southerden, Todd Boli, Rachel Jacoff, Chris Constas, Heather Webb, Joseph Luzzi, Arielle Saiber, William Stephany, Dennis Costa, Francesca Southerden, Chris Kleinhenz.