From the collaboration between printer Filippo Giaconi and illustrator Edoardo Salvi comes a wholly original version of Dante’s Commedia. The text is inscribed within the outlines of the capital letters forming the titles of the three cantiche.
25 panels present the typographic composition of the poem alongside corresponding illustrations, creating a striking effect. Within the large “I” of Inferno are contained the opening cantos of the first cantica, and so on until the “O”. The sequence then begins again with the “P” of Purgatorio, progressing through to Paradiso, the third cantica.
The project stems from the idea of transforming the grandeur of the Commedia into a multisensory experience. Displaying what we are accustomed to reading on the pages of a book, encountered here as a single, unexpectedly scaled visual field, elicits new responses in those who read and observe.
The journey begins from the highest peaks of poetry, drawing inspiration from the provocations of Marcel Duchamp (28 July 1887, Blainville-Crevon – 2 October 1968, Neuilly-sur-Seine), and succeeds in uniting the strict geometry of letters with the free expressiveness of representation.
