Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Free Course from Columbia University

As we approach the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death (September 14), we wanted to feature a timely resource: Teodolinda Barolini, a professor at Columbia University, has posted online a course for anyone who wishes to read Dante’s Commedia from beginning to end. It features 54 recorded lectures, covering Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, with each cantica being read in its entirety. Barolini also oversees a related web site, Digital Dante, where you can find Dante’s text in the Petrocchi edition with English translations by Mandelbaum and Longfellow. Plus the site features commentary on Dante’s text.

Barolini’s Dante course will be added to our list of Free Literature Courses, a subset of our collection, 1,700 Free Online Courses from Top Universities.

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Watch L’Inferno (1911), Italy’s First Feature Film and Perhaps the Finest Adaptation of Dante’s Classic