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  4. Rare Books & Special Collections : Exhibit — "Bound up with love..." The extraordinary legacy of Father John Zahm's Dante Collection

Rare Books & Special Collections : Exhibit — "Bound up with love..." The extraordinary legacy of Father John Zahm's Dante Collection

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Location: 102 Hesburgh Library, Rare Books & Special Collections

Note: The exhibit is open Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, from September 3rd to December 17th, 2021.

Content

This year marks the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, and the milestone is being celebrated around the world. In conjunction with this anniversary, our current exhibit showcases the preeminent Dante collection held by the University of Notre Dame.

Rev. John A. Zahm, C.S.C., initiated the collection in 1902 with the purchase of forty-eight important early print volumes of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. This year we are celebrating the legacy of the Zahm Dante Collection, and the remarkable accumulation of rare material acquired over the past century to enhance the scholarly value of the collection.

Highlights of the exhibition include rare printings of the three crowns of Italian literature — Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio — as well as verse anthologies of poetry and other tools such as grammars and dictionaries that would have assisted 16th-century readers of vernacular literature.

This exhibit was curated by Tracy Bergstrom (Curator, Italian Studies and Dante Collection), Chiara Sbordoni (Adjunct Professor in Italian, Rome Global Gateway), and Demetrio Yocum (Senior Research Associate, Center for Italian Studies). This and other exhibits within the library are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.

All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.

Also in commemoration of the 700th anniversary of Dante's death, the Center for Italian Studies and Devers Family Program in Dante Studies are hosting a series of lectures on the topic of Dante in America. During the Fall Semester, the lectures will be held in a hybrid online and in-person format.

Learn more about the series including event dates, titles, and registration information.

Originally posted at library.nd.edu. Please check their event page for details, since this event section may not reflect any changes to the event.