Abelard, Peter, 304
Abravanel, Isaac, 93–97, 339n25
Abu Huraryra, 283
Abulafia, Abraham, 89–91
Acts of the Apostles, 303, 318
Ulysses as, 35–36
Aeneid (Virgil), 14, 19, 28–29, 33
Aeolus, 46–47
afterlife. See death and the afterlife
Aggadah, 281
agriculture: in ancient Rome, 158
and humans’ responsibility towards nature, 157–59
Akiva ben Yoseph, 98
Alberti, Leon Battista, 210
Albertus Magnus, 22
Al-Biruni, 179
Alboino della Scala, 17
alchemy, 76
Alcidamas, 59
Alcuin of York, 23–24
Alembert, Jean Le Rond d’, 26
Alexander, Pope, 223–24
Alexandria, Library of, 266
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. See Carroll, Lewis
All’s Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare), 134
al-Ma’arri, Abu l-’Ala’, 284
alphabet: combinatory possibilities of, 123
Hebrew, 88
Al-Rashid, Haroun, 66
Anastasius, Pope, 257
Andersen, Hendrik, 269–70
animals: Augustine’s view of, 213–14
as constellations, 205–6
devil manifested as, 214. See also dogs
Antaeus, 116
Apocalypse (Revelation): as described in the Commedia, 316
interpretations of, 285–88
Apocalypse of Paul, 20
Apocalypse of Peter, 20
Aquinas, Saint Thomas. See Thomas Aquinas, Saint
Argenti, Filippo, 171
Argentina: economic crisis in, 237
military atrocities in, 219–20
under Perón, 238
Aristophanes, 135
Aristotle, 21, 22, 54, 108–9, 173, 316
on money, 247
nature as viewed by, 158, 159, 161, 162, 163
Nicomachean Ethics, 258
artistic endeavor, as “false image,” 91–92. See also literature; poetry, power of; stories
Asín Palacios, Miguel, 284
astrology, as science in Dante’s time, 205–6
Athens, naming of, 187–88
atomic bomb, building of, 230–33
Attar, Fariduddin, 336n3
Atwood, Margaret, 185
Augustine, Saint, 23, 38, 136, 154, 168, 187
animals as viewed by, 213–14
City of God, 287–88
Confessions, 319
Augustus, Emperor, 158
as distinguished from hell, 302
language as instrument of resistance at, 301–2
automata, 76
avarice, sin of, 242–43
curse of, 86
Bacon, Francis, 4, 86, 265, 313
Bacon, Roger, 228
Barrows, Anita, 161
Bartolomeo della Scala, 17
Basil, Saint, 241
Bassani, Giorgio, 292
Beard, Mary, 187
Beatrice: as Dante’s guide in the Commedia, 7, 21, 24, 52, 67, 130, 133–34, 145, 189, 208–9, 241, 325–26
as venerated in the Vita nova, 19, 20
Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de, 197
Beauvais, Pierre de, 210
Beauvoir, Simone de, 189
Beckett, Samuel, 151
beekeeping, 147–48
Bellay, Joachim du, 40
Benedict XI, Pope, 17
Benevento, Battle of, 226–27
Berlin, Isaiah, 25
Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint, 21, 23, 209, 291
Bertran de Born, 27–28
Bezzuoli, Giuseppe, 227
Bhagavad Gita, 232
Bhartrihari, 120–25
Biblia rabbinica, 99
bitcoins, 246
Boccaccio, Giovanni, 6, 14, 16, 18, 28, 86, 171, 206, 325
Boethius, 16
Bomberg, Daniel, 99–101
Bonaiuto, Andrea di, 213
Bonaventure, Saint, 53, 103, 133
Bonet de Lattes, 97
Boniface VIII, Pope, 17
bonobo apes, 118–19
books: alternative forms of, 267–68
arranging of, 255–56
as oracles, 83–84. See also Jewish books, published in Venice; literature; reading
Borges, Jorge Luis, 6, 89, 113, 279, 292–93, 336n3
“The Congress,” 271
Universal Library of, 123
Bragadin, Pietro, 99
Breughel, Pieter the Elder, Tower of Babel, 250
Brodsky, Joseph, 84
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 201
Bruni, Leonardo, 239
Buber, Martin, 306–7
Buchan, James, 236–37
Buddha, 280–81
Buddhism, and death, 280–81
Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 169
Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 230
cabinet de curiosités, 265
Cacciaguida, 67, 208, 209, 210
Caedmon, 139
Cage, John, 72
Caligula, Emperor, 277
Calvino, Italo, 124
Camus, Albert, The Outsider, 202
Cangrande della Scala, 14, 16, 18, 213, 239, 316
cannons, 228
Caravaggio, Dormition of the Virgin, 249–50
Carnegie, Andrew, 270
Carroll, Lewis (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson): Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 138–45
The Hunting of the Snark, 166–67
language and questioning in works of, 140–45
Through the Looking-Glass, 123, 139
Carson, Rachel, 159–60
Carvajal, Luis de, 55
Casares, Adolfo Bioy, 6
Casella, 309
Cassiano dal Pozzo, 265
Castelvetro, Ludovico, 44
categorical systems, meaning imposed upon, 264–66
Cavafy, Constantin, 84
center of the universe, as perceived by various cultures, 178–79
Cerberus, 214–15
Champollion, Jean-François, 79
Charlemagne, 206
Charles III, King, 76
Charles de Valois, 17
Charles of Anjou, 223, 226, 227
Chartier, Roger, 13
Chaumette, Pierre-Gaspard, 194–95
Chiaromonte, Nicola, 177
chimpanzees, 118
China, firearms invented in, 227–28
Christian dogma, Dante’s acknowledgment of, 128, 189, 258
Cicero, 4, 5, 123, 214, 290, 303
Scipio’s Dream, 19
Cieza de Leon, Pedro, 81
Cino da Pistoia, 18
Clement V, Pope, 205
climate change, 162–63
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 139
collections and collectors, 263–66
Collodi, Carlo, 324
Columella, 158
Comentarios reales (the Inca Garcilaso), 73–75
ancient influences on, 304
beasts in, 239–40
Beatrice’s role in, 7, 21, 24, 52, 67, 130, 133–34, 145, 189, 208–9, 241, 325–26
as catalogue of losses, 208–9
and Dickens’s Christmas Carol, 245–46
dogs in, 204, 207, 212–13, 217
early copies of, 18–19
ethical dilemmas in, 191–92
human suffering in, 190–92
Inferno, 27–28, 29, 70, 111, 112–13, 114, 116, 151, 152–53, 161–62, 170, 207–8, 224, 229–30, 240–41, 243, 252, 257, 260, 314–15
Islamic influences in, 284
as journey through the forest, 168–71, 180–81, 217, 288, 325
Primo Levi’s recitation of, 297–99
maps of the three realms of, 260–62
Montaigne’s reading of, 8
natural world as described in, 151–57, 161–62
Paradiso, 23, 24–25, 41–42, 52, 67–69, 87, 111–12, 133, 189, 224, 257, 262, 268, 325, 326
poetic truth inherent in, 315–17, 319–20, 324–26
probable sources for, 19–20
Purgatorio, 8, 68–69, 70, 85, 90–91, 133–34, 222–23, 225–26, 242–43, 257, 261, 308–9, 320, 323, 345n14
readings of, 7–9
role of language in, 68–70
Ulysses as character in, 33–34, 36, 40–41, 44–46, 297–99, 302, 304–5
Virgil as Dante’s guide in, 19, 27–29, 36, 44, 68–70, 113, 116, 130, 145, 152–53, 170–71, 180, 216–17, 222–23, 230, 257–58, 308–9, 313–14, 316
concentration camps. See Auschwitz
Condorcet, marquis de, 195
Conegliano, Cima de, The Lion of Saint Mark, 92, 104–5
Congress for Cultural Freedom, 233
Constantine, Emperor, Donation of, 224–25
Constanza, 191–92
constellations, 205–6
Convivio (Dante), 21, 209, 248
Copernicus, 176–77
Corbusier, Charles-Édouard-Jeanneret Le, 270
Corinthians, First Epistle to the, 325
Corinthians, Second Epistle to the, 19
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, 291, 358n25
Cortejarena, Domingo Jaca, 147
Cousin, Jean the Elder, 39
Covarrubias, Sebastián de, 13
covetousness, sin of, 241–42
Cranach, Lucas the Elder, 273, 274
Cratylus, 131–32
cryonics, 290
curiosities, collectors of, 265–66
curiosity, 1–2
Aquinas’s perspective on, 23–24
in Dante’s Commedia, 13–14, 27–29, 52–53
about death and the dead, 292–93
encyclopédistes’ perspective on, 26–27
Hume’s perspective on, 25–26, 27
methods of pursuing, 42–44
Montaigne’s perspective on, 2–3
as motivating force, 24–25
the nature of, 11–12
obstacles to, 27–29
paradox inherent in, 42
perversions of, 23
punishment for, 39–41
and questioning, 4–5, 45–47, 85–86
Seneca’s perspective on, 29
Curiosity (exploratory spacecraft), 46–47
curiosity machines, 42–44
Cusi, Meshullam, 98
Damian, Peter, 279
Dante Alighieri: and composition of the Commedia, 14, 16, 211–12
in exile from Florence, 17, 67, 207, 208–9, 211–13
on the history of language, 86–88
portrait of, 15
women in society of, 189–92. See also Beatrice Commedia; Convivio; De vulgari eloquentia; Questio de aqua et terra; Vita nova
death and the afterlife, 273–78
and the Apocalypse, 285–88
Buddhist beliefs regarding, 280–81
Christian beliefs regarding, 285–88
experienced as absence of others, 290–91
iconography of, 280
Islamic beliefs regarding, 283–84
Judeo-Christian beliefs regarding, 281–82
metaphors of, 284–85
personification of, 275–76
prophetic visions of, 281–82
Seneca on, 291
Zoroastrian beliefs regarding, 281
Declaration of the Rights of Man, 193–95
Declaration of the Rights of Woman, 195, 197–99
Dedalus, Stephen. See Joyce, James deforestation, 160. See also forests; nature
Deleuze, Gilles, 57
Delphi, 178–79
De vulgari eloquentia (Dante), 65–66, 86–88, 125, 154, 301
Dewey, Melvin, 267
Dewey decimal system, 267, 268
Dexter, Timothy, 278
Dickens, Charles, 250
A Christmas Carol, 245–46
Little Dorrit, 246
Oliver Twist, 201–2
Diderot, Denis, 26
Dio Chrysostom, 45
Diocletian, Emperor, 285
Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge. See Carroll, Lewis
dogs: in the Commedia, 204, 207, 212–13, 217
as constellations, 205
“dog” as term of insult, 204, 207
as faithful companions, 210–11
in literature, 201–3
as omen, 215
rage embodied by, 214–15
Dominic, Saint, 215
Donati, Corso, 17
Donati, Forese, 191
Don Quixote (Cervantes), 49, 109, 135, 199, 340n5
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 177–78
Doyle, Arthur Conan, 13
Duckworth, Robinson, 138, 139–40
Dürer, Albrecht, 176
Durrell, Lawrence, Constance, 166
Dürrenmatt, Friedrich, 222
Eco, Umberto, 91
ecopsychology, 160–61
educational institutions, 3–4, 8
Einstein, Albert, 222
Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, Rabbi, 94–95, 98
Encyclopédie (Diderot and Alembert), 26–27,
Encyclopédie Larousse, 267
Epictetus, 45
Epistle of Forgiveness (al-Ma’arri), 284
Este, Isabella d’, 264–65
Etruscan tombs, 291–92
Eve, as Pandora, 39–40
Exodus, book of, 94
Ezekiel, book of, 94, 285, 316
Faulkner, Barry, 95
Felice da Prato, 99
Ferdinand, King, 96
Flaubert, Gustave, 327
Florence, domestic life in, 210
Földényi, László, 177–78
forests: in the Commedia, 151–56, 168–70
as metaphor, 169–70. See also nature
Francesco da Barberino, 18
Freccero, John, 225, 316, 324–25
Frederick II, Emperor, 115, 153, 223
and civil law, 323
French Revolution, 220–21
equality for women in, 193–99
Freud, Sigmund, 137
Frost, Robert, 84
Frye, Northrop, 167
Fucci, Vanni, 208
Galatians, Epistle to the, 317–18
Galileo Galilei, 174–76, 257–58
Garcilaso de la Vega, the Inca, 74–75, 77
Garden of the Finzi-Contini (Bassani), 292
gauchos, 148–50
geese, 210
gender identity: grammatical manifestations of, 192–93
in literature, 183–84
and patriarchal authority, 187–89
and social equality, 192–99
symbolic representations of, 192–93
and traditional roles, 186–87. See also women
Genesis, book of, 38, 113, 117–18, 131
Gerard of Siena, 244
Geri del Bello, 28
Gigli, Octavo, 176
Gilgamesh, King, 73
Giorgi, Domenico, 79–80
Girondins, 198–99
Giustiniani, Marco, 99
God, as light, 313
God, word of: interpretation of, 87–90, 119
God’s justice: Aquinas’s view of, 172
Dante’s understanding of, 171–73, 204, 215–16, 225, 233
Goethe, Johan Wolfgang von, 31
good, the, 326
curiosity as path towards, 24, 27
death perceived as, in Christian tradition, 288–89
Gordimer, Nadine, 322–23
Gouges, Olympe de, 195–99
Gracchi brothers, 158
Graffigny, Françoise de, 78
Graham, Billy, 287
Greece, ancient, women in, 187–88
greed. See avarice, sin of
Grimms’ Fairy Tales, 65, 66, 275–76
Groves, Leslie, 231
Guerri, Domenico, 113
Guido Novelo da Polenta, 17, 18
Guignefort, Saint, 211
Guillotin, Joseph-Ignace, 220–21
gunpowder, early use of, 227–29
Gupta, Chandra II, 121
Gupta, Kumara, 121
Gupta dynasty, 121–22
Guthrie, W. K. C., 58
Ham (son of Noah), 117
Hamlet (Shakespeare), 41, 141, 142
Hebrew, preeminence of, 87–88, 89–90, 113
Hebrew alphabet, 88
Hebrews, Epistle to the, 215
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 57
history as conceived by, 177–78
Heidegger, Martin, 54
Hell, Dante in, 68–70, 300–301, 311
Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, 191
Henry VII, Emperor, 207
Heraclitus, 45
Hermes, 60–61
Hermogenes, 132
Hernández, José, Martín Fierro, 147, 148–50
Herodotus, 114–15
Hesiod, 38–39
Hevelius, Johannes, 206
hima, 158–59
Hippias, 45, 57–58, 59–60, 61–63
Hiroshima, atomic bomb dropped on, 220, 232
history, Hegel’s concept of, 177–78
Hitler, Adolf, 270
Homer, 131
Odyssey, 14, 19, 46–47, 177, 187, 201
homophobia, 186–87
Horace, 308
humanism, 53
Hume, David, 29
A Treatise of Human Nature, 25–26, 320–21
Huns, 122
Ibn ‘Arabi, 283
Ibn Khaldun, 35
identity, 127–29
adolescents’ search for, 49–50
children’s awareness of, 135
name as, 132–33
and place, 165–67. See also gender identity
Ikhwan al-Safa, 284–85
imagination: and humans’ sense of place, 178–79
as tool for survival, 3
truth embodied in, 315–27
of the writer, 9
individuation, Jung’s concept of, 136–37
injustice: justifications for, 219–20
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 162–63, 345–46n20
International Monetary Fund (IMF), 237–38
Isherwood, Christopher, 290
Isidore of Seville, 210
Islam, and death, 283–85
I-Tsing, 120–21
Jacopo Alighieri (Dante’s son), 16, 18
James, Henry, 169
Spoils of Poynton, 269–70
Japan: concept of death in, 280
as target of atomic bomb, 220, 232
Jason (captain of the Argonauts), 40–41
Jaucourt, chevalier de, 27
Jaynes, Julian, 71–72
Jeremiah, book of, 239
Jewish books, published in Venice, 98–101
Jews, persecution of, 295–96
and language as instrument of resistance, 301–2. See also Auschwitz; Judaism, principles of
John, Gospel of, 225
John of Patmos, 279, 285, 287, 316
Johnson, Samuel, 344n12
John the Baptist, Saint, 92
John the Evangelist, Saint, 88, 92
Joyce, James, 34
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Stephen Dedalus character in), 165–66
Judah the Prince, Rabbi, 89
Judaism, principles of, 93–98. See also Kabbalah; Talmud; Talmudic tradition; Torah, as word of God
Judeo-Christian beliefs, about death, 281–82, 285–88
Julius Caesar (Shakespeare), 154
Jung, Carl Gustav, 136–37
justice. See God’s justice; Socrates: on justice and equality
just society, 199
Socrates’ concept of, 185–86. See also natural rights
Kabbalists, 79–80
Kadare, Ismail, 207–8
Kafka, Franz, 16, 119, 141, 178
“The Penal Colony,” 307–8
Kalidasa, 121
Kant, Immanuel, 177
Keats, John, 16
Kenny, Andrew, 220
Kerford, G. B., 54
Keynes, John Maynard, 247
knowledge, as virtue, 36
Knox, John, 287
Kommareck, Nicolas, 76
Krugman, Paul, 246–47
Lacan, Jacques, 135
La Celestina (Rojas), 49, 50–51, 289
Lafontaine, Henri, 267
Landino, Cristoforo, 174
landscape. See forests; nature
language: Bhartrihari’s theories of, 122–25
Dante’s history of, 86–88, 125
as gift, 35–36
as human attribute, 118–19, 125
as instrument of curiosity, 14, 33, 45–47, 86–87
layers of meaning in, 303–4
limitations of, 9, 68, 111–12, 311–12
power of, 299–300, 303–5, 308–9
La Rochelle, Drieu, 148–49
Latini, Brunetto, 208, 209, 210, 224, 237
laws: Hippias’s view of, 59–60
and moral choices, 323–24
Lear, Linda, 159
lectura dantis, 7–8
Leo X, Pope, 99
Lerner, Isaias, 49–51
Levi, Peter, 148
Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 179–80, 181
Liddell, Alice, 138–40
Life of Adam and Eve, 67
literature: creation of, 16
dogs in, 201–3
gender as manifested in, 183–84
as instrument of compassion, 190–91
as mirror of ourselves, 137
revisiting of, 307
Lives of the Fathers, 20
Livy, 76
Lombard, Peter, 324–25
Lopez, Barry, 202
love, categories of, 258–59
Lugones, Leopoldo, 341n18
Luke, Gospel of, 171, 192, 225
Mary and Martha in, 248–49
Mabinogion, 226
Macarius of Egypt, 246
Madoff, Bernard, 246
Magi, 44
Mago, 158
Malaspina, Moroello, 14
Malot, Hector, 183
Malraux, André, 279
Manfred: at the Battle of Benevento, 226–27, 279
conflicting views of, 223–24
Manguel, Alberto: reflections on the end of life, 274–78
stroke suffered by, 107–10
Manrique, Jorge, 244
Manutius, Aldo, 4
Manutius the Younger, 4
Marie Antoinette, 198
Marie de France, 214
Mark, Saint, lion of, 92, 104–5
Martello, Carlo, 205
Marx, Karl, 52
Mary Magdalene, 92
Masih ad-Dajjal, 283
Matthew, Gospel of, 44
Mazzotta, Giuseppe, 6
Medici, Lorenzo de’, 174
Meier, Melchior, Apollo and Marsyas, 112
Melville, Herman, 140
memory, 298–99
Méricourt, Théroigne de, 198
Messiah, coming of the, 97, 339n25
Meung, Jean de, 226
Michelet, Jules, 197
Millais, John Everett, 250
Milton, John, 151
Mishima, Yukio, 280
Mishnah, 89
misogyny, 186
money, 235–38
Aristotle on, 247
Montaigne, Michel de, 63
on Dante, 8
Essays, 2–3
Montesquieu, 78
Montfaucon de Villars, Abbot, 76
Mouisset, Anne-Olympe, 195
Nabokov, Vladimir, 263
Nahman of Bratslav, Rabbi, 41, 168
names: as identity, 131–33
Socrates on, 132
Napier, John, 287
Nathan of Gaza, 313
natural rights: limitations on, 195
as manifested during the French Revolution, 193–95
nature: Aristotelian attitude towards, 158, 159, 161, 162, 163
as described in the Commedia, 151–57, 161–62
humans’ relationship with, 148–50, 156–63
nostalgia for, 149–50
violence to, 154–56. See also forests
resistance to, 301–2
Needham, Joseph, 228
Nephilim, 113
Neruda, Pablo, 202–3
Newton, Isaac, 25
Nimrod, 113–14, 116–17, 175–76
nominalists, 71
Nyâyas, 123–24
Odysseus. See Ulysses
Odyssey. See Homer; Ulysses
Office international de Bibliographie, 267
Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 230–33
order, human inclination towards, 259–63, 271. See also categorical systems, meaning imposed upon; collections and collectors
Ossola, Carlo, 44
Otlet, Paul, as collector, 266–71
Ouaknin, Marc-Alain, 100
Pandora: Eve as, 39–40
jar of 39–40
Paolo, 190–91
Paolo, Giovanni di, 69
Paper Museum, 265–66
Paracelsus, 77
Patanjali, 122
pathetic fallacy, 161
patriarchal authority, 187–89
Pauli, Johannes, 211
Perón, Juan, 238
Persico, Nicolà, 76
Pétain, Marshall, 270
Peter the Venerable, 304
Pézard, André, 345n14
phantasia, 108–9
Philip VI, King, 235
photography and photograph of gold-mine workers, 251–53
Phrygian, as primordial language, 115
Pietro Alighieri (Dante’s son), 8, 131
pilpul, 41
Pinocchio, 324
place, and human identity, 165–67, 176–81
planets and stars, as influence on human behavior, 205–6
Cratylus, 131–32
on language, 72
Pliny the Elder, 158
Plutarch, 57
Pluto, 114
Plutus, 242
Poe, Edgar Allan, 289
poetry, power of, 308–9
politics: art of, 60–61
Stendhal’s view of, 220
Polydorus, 153
Pompignan, marquis Le Franc de, 195, 196
Porphyry, 158
Portinari, Beatrice, 212. See also Beatrice
printing presses, early, 76. See also Jewish books, published in Venice
Protagoras, 60–61
Proust, Marcel, Du côté de chez Swann, 230, 232
Psalms and Psalmists, 105, 274, 282
Psammetichus, 114–15
Ptolemy (astronomer), the universe as depicted by, 173
Quechua language. See quipu
Questio de aqua et terra (Dante), 20–21
in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 140–45
books as facilitators of, 83–84
as instrument of curiosity, 14, 33, 45–47
language as tool for, 86–87, 111–12
question mark, 4
quipu: interpretation of, 74–76, 80–81
Sansevero’s study of, 77–80
Qur’an, 35, 283. See also Islam, and death
Rabelais, François, 55–56
Ramelli, Agostino, 42
reading: art of, 9
challenges inherent in, 7
as infinite enterprise, 92–94. See also literature
realists, 71
reasoning, approaches to, 51, 52–62
Reeves, James, 130
Revelation, book of, 280, 285, 316. See also Apocalypse
Richard of Saint-Victor, 303
Rifkind, Sir Malcolm, 321–22
rights. See natural rights
Rilke, Rainer Maria, 97
“The Panther,” 115–16
Robespierre, Maximilien de, 193
Rojas, Fernando de, 204. See also La Celestina
Roland, Madame, 197
Roma, Immanuel de, 96
Romano, Yehuda, 96
Roosevelt, Franklin, 270
Roszak, Theodore, 160–61
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 32, 193
Ruggiero, Cardinal, 279
Ruskin, John, 151–52, 156, 161
Sacchetti, Franco, 210
Sacks, Oliver, 115
Saint-Etienne, Jean-Paul Rabaut, 194
Salgado, Sebastião, photography of, 251–53
Salih, Tayeb, Season of Migration to the North, 166
Salutati, Coluccio, 19
Sansevero, Raimondo di Sangro, 75–80, 94
Apologetic Letter of, 77–80
inventions of, 76–77
and the quipu of the Incas, 77–80
Sanskrit texts, 121–24
Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino, 150
Scholem, Gershom, 313
Schwebel, Leah, 36
Scottish Reformation, 287
semantic signs, other than writing, 73. See also language; quipu; words
Senefelder, Alois, 76
Shakespeare, William. See All’s Well That Ends Well; Hamlet; Julius Caesar; Troilus and Cressida
Shass Pollak, 103
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 67, 324
she-wolf, sins of, 239, 240, 241
Siemes, Father, 232–33
Sieyès, abbé, 194
Silesius, Angelus, 302
Sinon, 28–29
sins, 258–59. See also avarice, sin of; covetousness, sin of; usury, sin of
slavery: in ancient Rome, 158
Aristotle’s view of, 160
as institution, 59
justification for, 186
Socrates, 14, 36, 54, 57, 58–59
on justice and equality, 185–86, 199
on names, 131–32
reasoning of, 60–63
Sophists, 53–62
Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, 187
South Africa, apartheid in, 321–23
Spinoza, Baruch, 95
Stein, Gertrude, 1
Steiner, George, 63
Stendhal, 220
Stephenson, Craig, 131
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 40
Stone, I. F., 58
stories: importance of, 9, 37–38, 41–42
Stroessner, Alfredo, 295
Sutherland, Donald, 1
Suzuki, David, 346n20
Swenson, May, 276
Babylonian, 100–101
Talmudic tradition, 7, 41, 68, 88–89, 277
and death, 281–82
Tasso, Torquato, 34–35
tattoos, as used in concentration camps, 295–96
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 34, 41
Tertullian, 40
Tetragrammaton, 89
Thatcher, Margaret, 321
Theocritus, 148
Theodore, Saint, 104
Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 21–24, 119, 171, 213, 241–42, 324–25
Aristotle as influence on, 22–23
thought processes, mapping of, 109–10
Thrasymachus, on injustice, 185, 186
Tibbets, Paul, 232
Timothy, first book of, 240
Toland, John, 76
Torah, as word of God, 88–89, 93–97, 104. See also Talmud
Toscanella, Orazio, 42–44
Tradescant, John (father and son), 263–64
translation: concept of, 65
Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 249
Troilus and Cressida (Shakespeare), 33, 239
Trojan Horse, 29
Trojan War, 35, 305. See also Homer: Iliad
truth: in the Commedia, 315–17, 319–20
Hume’s perspective on, 321
poetic lie as, 315–27
stories as, 312
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa), 322
Tsevetaeva, Marina, 84
Turannius, Sextus, 277–78
Tuscany, political factions in, 16–17, 223–24
Ugolino, Count, 279
Ulysses: as character in the Commedia, 33–34, 36, 40–41, 44–46, 297–99, 302, 304–5
curiosity of, 44–47
and the gift of language, 35
literary incarnations of, 34–35, 41
sins committed by, 35–36
unconscious, Jung’s concept of, 136
United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), 160
universe, models of, 173–77. See also center of the universe, as perceived by various cultures
Upanishads, 121
Valla, Lorenzo, 224–25
Valmiki, 111
Varro, Marcus Terentius, 158, 187
Vellutello, Alessandro, 174, 176
Veltwyck, Gerard, 99
Venice: imaginative and historical roots of, 104–5
Jewish books published in, 98–101
Jewish community in, 96, 97, 100–101
Videla, Jorge Rafael, 220
Villani, Giovanni, 239
violence, to nature, 154–56
Virgil: Aeneid, 14, 19, 28–29, 33, 83, 153, 179, 304
as Dante’s guide in the Commedia, 19, 27–29, 36, 44, 68–70, 113, 116, 130, 145, 152–53, 170–71, 180, 216–17, 222–23, 230, 257–58, 300, 308–9, 313–14, 316
as model for José Hernández, 148
and the natural world, 157–58
Viviano, Vincenzo, 176
Volkov, Solomon, 84
Voragine, Jacop de, Golden Legend, 20
Walcott, Derek, 165
war: death in, 289–90
as game of chess, 226–27
moral justification for, 232–33
Webb, Jeremy, 290
Weil, Simone, 50
Weissmuller, Johnny, 120
Whitman, Walt, Leaves of Grass, 257
Wilde, Oscar, 143–44
A House of Pomegranates, 252
The Importance of Being Earnest, 38
“The Young King,” 252–53
Williams, Charles, 159
wolves, 202. See also she-wolf, sins of
women: in ancient Greece, 187–88
as commodities, 188–89
in Dante’s world, 189–92
during the French Revolution, 193–99
rights of, 195–99
“subservient” function of, 38
traditional role of, 187–89. See also gender identity
woods. See forests; nature
words: and meaning, 123–24
as representation of thoughts, 66. See also language; translation; writing
workers, as represented in art and literature, 249–53
writing: aesthetics and utility of, 73
invention of, 71–73
as translation of the visual, 66, 70–71. See also language
Wunderkammer, 265
Ya’akov ben Asher, 98
Yeats, William Butler, 134–35
Yi Jing. See I-Tsing
Yitzhak, Rabbi Levi, 93
Yitzhaki, Rabbi Shlomo. See Rashi
Zend-Avesta, 281
Zeno’s paradox, 93
Zephyr, the West Wind, 47
Zoroastrianism, and death, 281