School of
Modern Languages

B.A., M.Phil, PhD, Cambridge

Part-time Lecturer in Italian

Contact Details:

• Email: vm63@le.ac.uk
• Tel: +44 (0)116 252 2680
• Subject: Italian
• Room: 1110
• Office Hours: Tuesday, 15.30-17.30

Research Summary

Dr Montemaggi’s main research interest is in the intersection of literature, ethics and theology, and his publications include forthcoming essays on how this intersection may be seen at play in Dante's Commedia.

His current research project - "Truth, ethics and comedy: a comparative reading of Dante's Commedia, Levi's Se questo e' un uomo and Benigni's La vita e' bella" - aims to bring reflection on Dante's Commedia to bear upon contemporary literary and theological debates, with a focus on questions such as the relationship between theism and atheism, and the relationship between tragedy and comedy.

Recent Publications

“‘Di sé medesmo rise’: Gregorio Magno nella Commedia di Dante”, in L’eredità spirituale di Gregorio Magno tra Occidente e Oriente’: Atti del Simposio Internazionale “Gregorio Magno 604-2004”, Roma, 10-12 marzo 2004, edited by G.I. Gargano (Verona: Gabrielli Editori, 2005)

“‘Perché non ho scritto la Divina Commedia? Perché non c’ho pensato’: Dante’s Comedy and the Comic Art of Roberto Benigni”, in Beyond ‘Life is Beautiful’: Comedy and Tragedy in the Cinema of Roberto Benigni, edited by G. Russo Bullaro (Leicester, Troubador Publishing, 2005).

“Dante e Oderisi: l’umiltà dell’arte, l’umiltà della parola”, in Atti del convegno “La città e il libro II: il manoscritto, la miniatura”, Firenze 4-6 September 2002 (www.florin.ms/beth3.html)

“‘La rosa in che il verbo divino carne si fece’: human bodies and truth in the poetic narrative of the Commedia” in Dante and the Human Body, edited by J.C. Barnes (Dublin: Four Courts Press, for the Dublin Foundation for Italian Studies, forthcoming).

“‘Padre mio ché non m’aiuti’: Ugolino and the poetics of the Commedia’, in Dante and the Ethical Use of Poetry, edited by C. Honess (supplement volume to The Italianist, forthcoming).

V. Montemaggi and Matthew Treherne (eds), Dante's 'Commedia': theology as poetry (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, forthcoming)

Teaching and Administration

IT2015 Premodern Italy
IT3142 Dante: Purgatorio & Paradiso