The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri

Robert Durling is Professor Emeritus of Italian and English Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Ronald L. Martinez is Associate Professor of Italian at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

'This new edition of Inferno is distinctly user-friendly....Serious students-in or out of the classroom-who...examine the original poem alongside a readable and reliable prose translation will find this edition excellently suited to their needs.' -The Christian Science Monitor'A useful volume for students and first-time visitors to Dante's cosmos.'- Publishers Weekly'In this new translation, Durling tries to be as concrete as possible, producing a version that is more fluent and accurate than the versions of Mandelbaum and Musa.... Highly recommended.' -Library Journal'Like the Inferno edition that preceded it, the Durling-Martinez Purgatorio, with its beautiful translation and superb apparatus of notes, is simply the best edition of Dante's second canticle in English. No other version offers anything close to what we find gathered here in one volume.' -Robert Harrison, Professor of Italian, Stanford University"As Durling and Martinez complete their monumental three-volume presentation of Dante's masterpiece, we can sense their triumph and elation, despite their characteristic modesty. This, after all, is the volume with which they can demonstrate the fullness and consistency of Dante's great project, its final approach to what they describe in one footnote as 'a pitch of intensity unique in all literature.' The scholarship, as always, is graceful, comprehensive, andacute, and it surrounds a translation that is so carefully considered and fully realized as to be, at times, quite breathtaking." --David Young, translator of The Poetry of Petrarch"Durling and Martinez deliver Paradiso in elegant English prose faithful to Dante's Italian. The general introduction and succinct notes to each canto enable an informed reading of a frequently daunting text, while the longer 'Additional Notes,' bibliography, and indices will more than satisfy the most exigent critic. Marvelous, in the richest medieval sense of the term." --Michael Wyatt, author of The Italian Encounter with Tudor England"At the end of his poem Dante claims that his 'high imagining failed of power,' but Durling and Martinez have suffered no such fate in completing their translation of the Divine Comedy. Their Paradiso is a crowning achievement, a work of lucid prose and of impeccable accuracy. Readers will find themselves rewarded by the succinct, richly informative notes at the end of each canto and the extended essay-notes at the back of the volume. Asplendid accomplishment." --Richard Lansing, editor of The Dante Encyclopedia

• CONTENTS Abbreviations, xv Introduction, 2 PARADISO CANTO 1 Notes to Canto 1 CANTO 2 Notes to Canto 2 CANTO 3Notes to Canto 3 CANTO 4Notes to Canto 4 CANTO 5Notes to Canto 5 CANTO 6Notes to Canto 6 CANTO 7Notes to Canto 7 CANTO 8Notes to Canto 8 CANTO 9Notes to Canto 9 CANTO 10Notes to Canto 10 CANTO 11Notes to Canto 11 CANTO 12Notes to Canto 12 CANTO 13Notes to Canto 13 CANTO 14Notes to Canto 14 CANTO 15Notes to Canto 15 CANTO 16Notes to Canto 16 CANTO 17Notes to Canto 17 CANTO 18Notes to Canto 18 CANTO 19Notes to Canto 19 CANTO 20Notes to Canto 20 CANTO 21Notes to Canto 21 CANTO 22Notes to Canto 22 CANTO 23Notes to Canto 23 CANTO 24Notes to Canto 24 CANTO 25Notes to Canto 25 CANTO 26Notes to Canto 26 CANTO 27Notes to Canto 27 CANTO 28Notes to Canto 28 CANTO 29Notes to Canto 29 CANTO 30Notes to Canto 30 CANTO 31Notes to Canto 31 CANTO 32Notes to Canto 32 CANTO 33Notes to Canto 33 THE NICENE CREED BOETHIUS' O QUI PERPETUA MUNDUM RATIONE GUBERNAS Notes to "O qui perpetua' ADDITIONAL NOTES 1. The Figure of Beatrice (After Canto 2)2. The Paradiso and the Monarchia3.The Primacy of the Intellect, the Sun, and the Circling Theologians (After Canto 14)4. Dante and the Liturgy (After Canto 15)5. The Religious Orders in the Paradiso 6. The Threshold Cantos in the Comedy 7. The Fate of Phaethon in the Comedy 8. Circle-Cross-Eagle-Scales: Images in the Paradiso9. The Final Image 10. The Neoplatonic Background11. Dante and Neoplatonism12. Dante's Astrology13. The Heavens and the Sciences: Convivio 214. The Paradiso as Alpha and Omega Textual VariantsBibliographyIndex of Italian, Latin, and Other Foreign Words Discussed in the NotesIndex of Passages Cited in the NotesIndex of Proper Names in the NotesIndex of Proper Names in the Text and Translation