The event will take place at 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 7 at the Dante Alighieri Cultural Centre in New Farm (26 Gray Street), with guests welcome to arrive from 2:30 p.m. Admission is $20 and includes refreshments.
The guest speaker will be Professor Daragh O’Connell, Associate Professor of Italian at University College Cork and Director of the Centre for Dante Studies in Ireland (CDSI).
An internationally recognised scholar, O’Connell is also Senior Editor of the Italian Studies journal and the author of numerous works on Dante and Italian culture between the Middle Ages and the early modern period.
The lecture, delivered in English and titled Dante at the Court of Vice, will offer an original reflection on the years of Dante’s exile from Florence.
After his condemnation and expulsion from his native city, Dante was forced to navigate new political realities: a network of small feudal courts scattered across central and northern Italy; environments in which power, diplomacy and personal ambition intertwined in complex ways.
Professor O’Connell will explore the concept of the “court” in Dante’s work not only as a physical setting but as a symbolic space shaped by love, hierarchy and political tension, with particular reference to the Divine Comedy.
The topic also connects to his current editorial project, Courting Dante: Love and Politics in the Divine Comedy, which seeks to reinterpret the medieval court as both a site for the expression of love and a stage for political and moral positioning.
The Dante Biennial Lecture represents not only a high-level academic event but also an important gathering point for Queensland’s Italian-Australian community.
In a city such as Brisbane, increasingly attentive to the value of cultural heritage, initiatives like this highlight the central role of the Dante Alighieri Society in promoting Italian language and thought.
Through the study of Dante, a universal figure whose work remains strikingly relevant today, the cultural dialogue between Italy and the English-speaking world continues to grow—including here in Australia.
An unmissable event for anyone wishing to rediscover Dante from a fresh perspective, exploring exile, politics and morality in ways that still resonate today.
