Looking for Dante

When we pick up a book, we might forget that as well as reading a text we are looking at a physical object. This is not the case for the medieval poet Dante, whose famous poem, the 'Divine Comedy', was made into beautiful objects in the form of early printed books. The oldest of these books date back to the very beginning of the print revolution, over 550 years ago. In 2023, Rebecca Bowen and Simon Gilson - University of Oxford specialists in Dante Studies and Book History - invited artist-printmaker Wuon-Gean Ho to examine these books and make a contemporary response. The result is a body of work called 'Looking for Dante', a collection of artwork, film, and essays that explores universal themes in Dante's text and considers their relevance today. Moving from morality and condemnation through love and redemption, 'Looking for Dante' offers a modern reading of the 'Divine Comedy' and the historical books that preserve it, reflecting on the universal appeal of ink on paper.