Dante and the Human Body

The essays in this volume explore Dante’s interest in the human body from various intellectual standpoints, the contributors being a mixture of historians, literary scholars and theologians. They are: The Anatomy and Physiology of the Human Body in the Commedia by Simon A. Gilson (University of Warwick); Dante, Medicine and the Invisible Body by Vivian Nutton (Wellcome Trust Centre, University of London); The Scientific Context of Dante’s Embryology by Joseph Ziegler (University of Haifa); and
Sanatio and Salvatio: ‘Body’ and Soul in the Experience of Dante’s Afterlife by Simone De Angelis (University of Berne).They also include Nostalgia in Heaven: Embraces, Affection and Identity in the Commedia by Manuele Gragnolati (Somerville College, Oxford); Divina anatomia: Laying Bare Body and Soul in the Commedia by Elizabeth Mozzillo-Howell (formerly of the University of Cambridge); ‘La rosa in che il verbo divino carne si fece’: Human Bodies and Truth in the Poetic Narrative of the Commedia by Vittorio Montemaggi (Churchill College, Cambridge); World and Body: A Study in Dante’s Cosmological Hermeneutics by Oliver Davies (King’s College, London).