野狼社区 Digital Dante Library - 'Envisioning Dante'
The Library is pleased to announce that the first part of the 野狼社区 Digital Dante Library, one of the culminating outputs of the 鈥楨nvisioning Dante鈥� project, will go live on Thursday, 29 May, with second and third parts being added over the course of 2025.
The collection
The John Rylands Research Institute and Library holds one of the most complete collections of Renaissance Dante printed editions in the world, including the three earliest Italian printed editions (all 1472), as well as Spanish, French, Latin, English, and Japanese translations of the Divine Comedy.
Of significant research importance, these iconic rare books and manuscripts also feature many different illustrated editions, including the first editions to contain printed images (1481 and 1487), Gustave Dor茅鈥檚 iconic 19th century illustrations, and an interactive digitization of Enriqueta Rylands鈥� own early-twentieth century manuscript.
Led by Professor Guyda Armstrong, the 鈥�鈥� project brought together a multidisciplinary team from across The University of 野狼社区 and the University of Oxford to work on this uniquely rich corpus of early printed books. The 野狼社区 Digital Dante Library is the culmination of this project and the digitisation of our collection has created an Open Access online digital library of 99 editions of Dante printed between 1472 and 1629.
Conference
To mark the first instalment of the Digital Dante Library[LINK] on 野狼社区 Digital Collections, the Rylands will host a conference built around the new collection on Thursday, 29 and Friday, 30 May 2025. This two-day event presents papers by world experts in Dante鈥檚 print history, material bibliography, and computer vision, plus an encounter session for participants with many of the iconic early printed editions of Dante鈥檚 poem held in the outstanding Rylands Dante collections.
The conference celebrates the material history 鈥� and futures - of the iconic editions of Dante鈥檚 Divine Comedy, from the very first copies made using moveable type in 1472, through the seventeenth century, culminating with the new Dante Digital Library.