Event: Book Launch: Josef Kalleya & Dante: A Child's Tormented Soul in Paradise (Volumes 2 & 3)
Date: 30 November 2023
Time: 19:30
Venue: The Storm Petrel Foundation, 79, St Anthony Street, Attard
Speaker: Prof. Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci
Prof. Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci's Josef Kalleya and Dante: A Child's Tormented Soul in Paradise Vol. II and Vol. III will be officially launched on Thursday 30 November. These two volumes form part of the author's comparative series on the work of the Maltese artist Josef Kalleya and the Italian poet Dante Alighieri.
Vol. I of the same series was launched in 2021, marking the beginning of the trilogy and also the VII centenary of Dante's death.
The series, a study of a corpus of Kalleya’s works previously unknown and undeciphered, reflects Dante’s three-part poem, itself sculpted upon the divine significance of the number three in Christian theology. Three realms, three books, terza rima, three languages, three virtues, three examinations. The significance and repetition of the number is infused within the entire text, itself an ocean of trinity symbolism. Dante’s vertiginous repetitions have been a consistent feature in Schembri Bonaci’s three volumes, establishing a rhythmic structure that set the tempo for the spiritual expedition: Dante’s iambic tercets, Kalleya’s incessant visual cycles, and Schembri Bonaci’s rhythmic repetitive reference to their words and images.
The launch will be held at the Storm Petrel Foundation (79, St Anthony Street, Attard) on Thursday 30 November 2023 at 19:30.
The event is organised by the Società Dante Alighieri in collaboration with the Department of Art & Art History and the Department of Italian, and APS Bank.