The Dante Encyclopedia is packed with, to use the words of its preface, “a wealth of information and critical opinion concerning the life and works of Dante”. The “primary goal” of the volume “is to provide readers with a broad base of knowledge elucidating not only the full corpus of the pet’s literary and expository achievement but also the cultural and intellectual context in which it is set, in an easily and rapidly accessible format”. The clearly written preface outlines the editions, translations and other texts cited in the work. A detailed abbreviations listing is followed by the alphabetically arranged listing of the names of the 144 scholars from 12 countries contributing. There is a plethora of maps and illustrations prefiguring the main entries. These are followed by “A chronology of the life of Dante Alighieri”, a listing of the popes “who lived before or during Dante’s lifetime”, a listing of “Roman and Holy Roman Emperors … mentioned or alluded to by Dante”, listings of “Musical settings of the Commedia, arranged by year of composition” beginning with the composer Giovanni Battista Montanari’s 1,562 madrigal, and concluding with Dietmar Hippler’s 1997 ballet. There is an alphabetically arranged listing of “Recorded musical settings of the Commedia”, a listing of reference works on Dante which includes electronic resources, and an extensive index of Italian and Latin proper names in Dante’s works. The volume concludes with a most comprehensive general index.
The main entries begin with a short paragraph on “Abati, Bocco degli” who was “punished … in the ninth circle of Hell, among the traitors to one’s country or cause”. They conclude with a detailed five‐paragraph entry including a bibliography on “Wrathful, The”. This follows an explanation of “Wrath” which is “one of the seven capital sins”. This entry and many others are accompanied by useful black and white illustrations, in this instance of “Wrath with the other sins of Incontinence, from Commedia di Dante, published by Filippo Giunti, Florence”. Entries vary in length from the brief paragraph to several pages ‐ the entry on “Ulysses” is a good example of a detailed account and is concluded by an extensive unannotated alphabetically arranged secondary bibliography. Most are clearly written with a minimum of academic verbiage or confusing literary terminology.
The Dante Encyclopedia is firmly bound to withstand general reference shelf usage. It is printed in a clear easily readable font, on acid‐free paper, in double columns. Richard Lansing, the general editor, his associate editors, and contributors have produced a most worthy successor to the long out of print Paget Toynbee’s A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante (1898), revised in 1968 by Charles S. Singleton. The only other competitor is the six‐volume Enciclopedia dantesca published in Rome between 1970 and 1975 in Italian. So, delightfully produced and illustrated, replete with fascinating information and cheap at the price, The Dante Encyclopedia should be found on the reference shelves of every library with pretensions to collections in the humanities. Its content is not confined to students of the great medieval Italian poet but extends into key concepts of the foundations of Western civilization and subsequent cultural and literary theory.
