Dante’s Women Across the Centuries: From Illuminated Manuscripts to Pop Culture

 

2025-2027

 

Project Title:

Dante’s Women Across the Centuries: From Illuminated Manuscripts to Pop Culture

Project Description

Dante’s Women Across the Centuries is an academic research project focused on the visual and cultural representation of female figures from Dante Alighieri’s works, spanning from medieval manuscript illuminations to contemporary visual culture. The project aims to investigate how key female characters such as Beatrice, Matelda, Francesca, Pia, and others have been depicted across different historical periods and artistic media.

The research consists of two integrated components:

1. Philological and Iconographical Analysis

• Study of medieval illuminated manuscripts featuring Dante’s female figures

• Codicological descriptions of the manuscripts, including details such as material support, artistic style, and painting schools

2. Contemporary Cultural Analysis

• Examination of modern representations of Dante’s female characters in various media, including film, comics, manga, digital art, advertising, and social media

• Cultural analysis of evolving interpretations, for instance:

  • Beatrice as both a romantic and a spiritual figure

  • The depiction of Pia de’ Tolomei in Italian comics

  • The sexualisation of Francesca da Rimini in contemporary art

Planned Research Outputs

• A digital microsite featuring curated sections on medieval and contemporary visual representations of Dante’s women, including images, scholarly commentary, and references to both manuscript sources and modern artistic works

• A structured database compiling data such as character names, medieval sources, contemporary authors, artistic media, brief critical analyses, and links to relevant images or audiovisual materials

• Potential development of a short academic course on methods for building digital exhibitions focused on Dante’s female figures, addressing practical aspects such as image sourcing, iconographical analysis, and digital presentation tools

Significance for ISFiDa

This project aligns with ISFiDa’s existing research interests in Dante studies, medieval and Renaissance iconography, and digital humanities. It contributes original scholarly insight by bridging medieval textual and visual traditions with their reinterpretation in modern visual culture, particularly concerning female representations. Such an interdisciplinary perspective enhances ISFiDa’s profile in international academic research.

Intellectual Property Statement

The concept and methodology of this project will be documented and registered on academic platforms such as Humanities Commons or Zenodo to ensure proper attribution. All project materials carry the statement: “Concept and methodology © ISFiDa 2025.”