TIRANA, Oct. 15 – Albania has joined global celebrations of Dante’s 750th birth anniversary featuring a collection of works by the great Italian poet translated into Albanian.
The Italian poet of the Middle Ages is known for penning the Divine Comedy, an epic widely considered to be among the world’s most important literary works.
The exhibition at the National Library in Tirana is also featuring a first special copy of the Divine Comedy for the blind in Albania in the Braille alphabet.
Culture Minister Mirela Kumbaro said Dante’s Divine Comedy in the Braille alphabet was a very important publication for the visually impaired to feel and grasp Dante’s lines.
Persida Asllani, the director of the National Library, described Dante’s relation with the Albanian world as “breathtaking courage and temptation, conceptual identification and aesthetic recreation, thanks to which, the unstoppable efforts and ordeal to translate him, and grasp his language, with mind and soul, comprise one of the most comprehensive journeys in Albania’s history of culture.”
Rino Caputo, an Italian literature professor specializing on Dante, said some of the articles displayed in the exhibition are “still unknown and current, which is a novelty in the field and history of Dante studies.”
The exhibition displayed in cooperation with the Italian Institute of Culture, will remain open at the National Library in Tirana until October 23.
Dante’s first translation into Albanian dates back to 120 years ago.
Dante was a Medieval Italian poet and philosopher whose poetic trilogy, The Divine Comedy, made an indelible impression on both literature and theology. He is best known for the epic poem The Divine Comedy, which comprises sections representing the three tiers of the Christian afterlife: purgatory, heaven, and hell.
