The Divine Comedy marked nothing less than the arrival of vernacular Italian as a literary language--and Dante's book is still considered Italy's greatest literary achievement.

The facing English texts are thus not intended to be absolutely literal, but to reflect the inner meanings and moods of the originals, with some further literal translations of difficult passages added in the notes.

A bilingual edition of the more than 300 sonnets, madrigals and other poems produced by Michelangelo over his long career. The poems reveal much of the artist's inner feelings about such universal themes as love, death and redemption.

This work is a guide to the reading of Dante's great poem, intended for the use of students and laymen, particularly those who are approaching the Inferno for the first time.