The ILTweb Digital
Dante Project is a long-term effort of the Institute for Learning
Technologies at Columbia University to prototype and develop an
online, multimedia Dante-related academic resource combining traditional
elements of scholarly research with new communication and presentation
possibilities enabled by networked digital technology.
In essence, the Digital Dante Project is (or will be) a multimedia
translation of The Divine Comedy. It is admittedly not a translation
like the Mandelbaum, Sinclair, Singleton, or other, more traditional,
text translations. Indeed, the Danteum, in this incarnation, is
not even an "original" translation in that it relies entirely on
the Longfellow translation for its English text of the Commedia.
In our view, however, the Digital Dante Project does constitute
a translation because it integrates (or will integrate) multimedia,
as well as hyperlinked text commentary and other materials, into
the reading of the Commedia in an innovative way -- a way not previously
possible in non-digital media. The Digital Dante Project is essentially
a twenty-first-century illumination -- one that intends to take
advantage of the existing technical possibilities of our contemporary
culture to create a viewpoint -- a twenty-first-century dantisti
viewpoint -- of contemporary and historical culture, much like Dante's
original work was (in addition to allegory) a thirteenth-century
viewpoint of then contemporary and historical culture.
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