Dante encounters seven popes in the Divine Comedy, five in hell, one in purgatory and one in paradise - that last being Saint Peter. His condemnation of individual popes and, I think, the papacy is extraordinarily strong and discomforting to relate. But was it all revenge? Did he fall for the politics too? Or was his message one of renewal, revival and reunion with God? Dante was concerned about salvation, the role of women and friars, the love of the gospel, and the fate of Christian...

This talk was first given to Idler Drinks. For more on Mark's work on Dante - https://www.markvernon.com/dantes-divine-comedy

“Circles of hell" has become commonplace in language. But what was Dante trying to show us when he wrote the inferno? What has been lost in translation, with this first canticle in Dante’s trilogy now part of a secular culture? Jason Baxter talks about his new translation of the Inferno with Mark Vernon. They discuss what Dante could convey in language and why the text never ceases to offer fresh insights. How can we understand his encounters with figures from Virgil to Ulysses? What is it t...

Rowan Williams and Jesse Armstrong talked at The Idler festival, partly around the idea, caught in the expression, “boring as hell”. But is that right, they asked, when a drama like Succession so clearly appeals to us? The question is fundamental, for an age inclined to regard hell as appealing or intriguing, is one on the way to being lost. Drawing on Dante and William Blake, two great diagnostic writers about different states of mind, this talk explores how the passions of the soul,...

Dante lived through a period of almost total social collapse. Civil war and city-state terror, practiced by the church as much as secular powers, drove him into exile for the last 20 years of his life. For a while, he lost everything. But then, through the trauma, he regained a ground and rediscovered the fullness of life. The Divine Comedy is the product of that transformation. The journeys through hell, purgatory and paradise hold nothing back, be that terrible tortures of extraordinary de...

Dante's imagery, particularly in the Paradiso, offers powerful prompts to developing the sense of what it is to be intelligent. He wrote for modern times, he said. And now, as AI becomes more pervasive, he can help us understand how machine learning and human intuitions are very different capacities. This was part of a talk given at the Scientific and Medical Network - https://scientificandmedical.net/webinars/ For more on Mark's work, particularly on Dante, see www.markvernon.com

Reason fails before the greatest spiritual truths. That much is not news. But part of the genius of Dante is his conjuring of images that reach beyond the impasses of paradox and seeming contradiction. I consider 8 such moments when Dante sees the unsayable and offers images of the ineffable. - how darkness leads to light - how appearances can be the opposite of the truth - how the immediate eclipses wider perspectives - how all faces are the divine face - how “I” and “we” coincide - how div...

What is the meaning of Easter? How might Holy Week be more than an occasion for its retelling? Can death and resurrection live today, as they once did, 2000 years ago? Dante’s journey, in the Divine Comedy, begins on Maundy Thursday, 1300. It continues through the inferno, on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, before he enters purgatory on Easter Sunday morning, at dawn. The climb up Mount Purgatory, then, takes until Easter Wednesday when, finally, Dante reaches paradise. Though that is ...

Dante would seem to be a key candidate for infernalism, the doctrine of endless punishment in hell for sinners who failed to turn to Christ. He’s said to be medieval and isn't that what they believed then? And doesn’t his Divine Comedy clearly, indisputably say as much? But Dante’s whole point is that nothing is as it seems to the unawakened eye. I think what Dante is doing is taking evil completely seriously and showing why eternal damnation not only isn't, but can’t be the final result. An...

The Divine Comedy is all about guides - finding guides, following guides, conversing with guides. Virgil and Beatrice are the best known, but there are other modes of guidance that Dante seeks and explores. Angels, dreams and myths accompanying Dante, even in the darkest moments. He learns to be present to them and trust that whilst in one encounter they can bring fear or shame, in another they inspire wrestling and struggle, and then in another again bring divine light and insight. For mor...