Dante’s Comedy is the poetic diary of a superhuman adventure. Reading it is a very complex and at the same time magnificent experience. Giuseppe Patota makes it accessible and enjoyable even to those who know it a little or not at all.

It is the year 1300. A man is lost in the pitch blackness of a forest. He does not know how he got there or how to get out. He is terrified. From here begins a journey that is nothing short of incredible, which will take him first into the bowels of the Earth; then up the slope of a mountain, to a lost paradise; finally to explore the depths of outer space. Along the way he encounters spirits of the dead, angels and demons, characters from history and mythology, real and fantastic creatures. Eventually his eyes rest on none other than God. The Comedy is the diary in verse of this extraordinary trip. But reading it, due to the language and intertwining themes, can be difficult adn frustrating. Thus, Giusppe Patota decided to collect the 114 most significant, curious or surprising verses of Dante’s work and explain them word by word, without taking anything for granted, linking the facts with the antecedents and proposing a reading without changing anything of the original text. In this way, readers are enraptured, page after page, by the exceptional events experienced by the poet. Each tale that precedes the verses of the Commedia always reminds us where we are, as if telling those about to read them: ‘You are here’. With such a guide, there is no risk of losing your way!