Danielle Callegari – författare

Waking to find himself shipwrecked on a strange shore before a dark wood, the pilgrim of the Divine Comedy realizes he must set his sights higher and guide his ship to a radically different port. Starting on the sand of that very shore with Dante, John Freccero begins retracing the famous voyage recounted by the poet nearly 700 years ago.Freccero follows pilgrim and poet through the Comedy and then beyond, inviting readers both uninitiated and accomplished to join him in navigating this complex medieval masterpiece and its influence on later literature. Perfectly impenetrable in its poetry and unabashedly ambitious in its content, the Divine Comedy is the cosmos collapsed on itself, heavy with dense matter and impossible to expand. Yet Dante's great triumph is seen in the tiny, subtle fragments that make up the seamless whole, pieces that the poet painstakingly sewed together to form a work that insinuates itself into the reader and inspires the work of the next author. Freccero magnifies the most infinitesimal elements of that intricate construction to identify self-similar parts, revealing the full breadth of the great poem.Using this same technique, Freccero then turns to later giants of literature— Petrarch, Machiavelli, Donne, Joyce, and Svevo—demonstrating how these authors absorbed these smallest parts and reproduced Dante in their own work. In the process, he confronts questions of faith, friendship, gender, politics, poetry, and sexuality, so that traveling with Freccero, the reader will both cross unknown territory and reimagine familiar faces, swimming always in Dante's wake.

Waking to find himself shipwrecked on a strange shore before a dark wood, the pilgrim of the Divine Comedy realizes he must set his sights higher and guide his ship to a radically different port. Starting on the sand of that very shore with Dante, John Freccero begins retracing the famous voyage recounted by the poet nearly 700 years ago.Freccero follows pilgrim and poet through the Comedy and then beyond, inviting readers both uninitiated and accomplished to join him in navigating this complex medieval masterpiece and its influence on later literature. Perfectly impenetrable in its poetry and unabashedly ambitious in its content, the Divine Comedy is the cosmos collapsed on itself, heavy with dense matter and impossible to expand. Yet Dante's great triumph is seen in the tiny, subtle fragments that make up the seamless whole, pieces that the poet painstakingly sewed together to form a work that insinuates itself into the reader and inspires the work of the next author. Freccero magnifies the most infinitesimal elements of that intricate construction to identify self-similar parts, revealing the full breadth of the great poem.Using this same technique, Freccero then turns to later giants of literature— Petrarch, Machiavelli, Donne, Joyce, and Svevo—demonstrating how these authors absorbed these smallest parts and reproduced Dante in their own work. In the process, he confronts questions of faith, friendship, gender, politics, poetry, and sexuality, so that traveling with Freccero, the reader will both cross unknown territory and reimagine familiar faces, swimming always in Dante's wake.

Dante’s Gluttons: Food and Society from the Convivio to the Comedy explores how the medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) uses food to express and condition the social, political, and cultural values of his time. Combining medieval history, food studies, and literary criticism, Dante’s Gluttons historicizes food and eating in Dante, beginning in his earliest collected poetry and arriving at the end of his major work. For Dante, the consumption of food is not a frivolity, but a crux of life, and gluttony is the abdication of civic and spiritual responsibility and a danger to both the individual body and soul, as well as the greater collective. This book establishes how one of the world’s preeminent authors uses the intimacy and universality of food as a touchstone, forging a community bound by a gastronomic language rooted in the deeply human relationship with material sustenance.

A compelling exploration into the rich tapestry of Italian food history and culture, from the Roman Empire to today, by the co-host of the top-ranked Gola food and wine podcastThough a relatively young country, Italy’s culinary identity has been simmering for centuries, shaped by a shared gastronomic culture. From the dormice and garum of the Roman Empire to the heresy of pineapple pizza, A Bite-Sized History of Italy traces this legacy, offering a delicious romp through millennia of culinary tradition and transformation.Author Danielle Callegari, Dartmouth College professor and celebrated Gola podcast co-host, guides readers through the kitchens, vineyards, city squares, and coastal ports of the iconic peninsula, painting an intimate portrait of a place justly famous for its cuisine—so much so that food might well be the very reason for its existence.With boundless energy and a fearless palate, Callegari explores beloved staples—pizza, pasta, parmigiano—alongside the unsung flavors that shaped Italian identity: legumes, wild herbs, game birds, spices, and the contributions of Jewish and other minority communities. Readers will uncover the true history of the tomato, Mussolini’s failed attempt to replace pasta with rice, the “Carbonaragate” scandal that made international headlines, and more. Drawing on ancient cookbooks, medieval architecture, and contemporary cooking shows, Callegari reveals how Italy’s rise as Europe’s gastronomic heart is rooted in religious customs, class dynamics, and the echoes of empire, and how food became a language of both unity and division.Chapters feature recipes, beverage pairings, compelling historical vignettes, and current restaurant recommendations. Vivid and entertaining, this latest addition to The New Press’s standout Bite-Sized History series, A Bite-Sized History of Italy offers a glimpse of the making of Italy itself—a nation defined, defended, and devoured around the table.