Oderisi Redux: PURGATORIO, Canto XI, Lines 73 - 108

Walking With Dante

I said we'd move on to the second half of Oderisi da Gubbio's speech . . . but there's no way we can. There are still so many unanswered questions about the way Dante cryptically inserts himself into the text, the way the art of miniaturization reflects the new style in poetry that Dante practices, and the very fact that Dante meets someone whose life is spent with manuscripts.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work our way through more questions about the first half of Oderisi's speech in PURGATORIO.

Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:57] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XI, lines 73 - 108. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation (yes, please!), go to my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:46] Oderisi and Franco are indeed mentioned by others but mostly centuries after Dante. And for what it's worth, is Dante even writing a history-based poem?

[06:48] Oderisi calls Dante the pilgrim "brother"--as in monastic brotherhood or as in the talk of artistic guilds?

[08:32] Dante puts the prophetic denunciation in the mouth of a character, rather than in the poet's interpolation.

[12:38] Dante meets a miniaturist, an illuminator . . . and the new style of poetry was mostly practiced in small poems like sonnets and canzone.

[17:34] In my interpretation, Dante the poet remains unnamed in the tercet about the Guidos. Should we see a psychological or artistic development here?

[22:13] Dante meets an illuminator, the sort who our poet might hope would someday work on COMEDY.