Dante's Inferno

Dante Alighieri was an Italian poet and politician active between the 13th and 14th centuries. His magnum opus is The Divine Comedy, a poetic saga where, guided by the Roman poet Virgil, he travels through Hell and Purgatory to seek his love, Beatrice, in Paradise. Dante was exiled from his hometown of Florence for speaking out against the corruption of the church, and his political endeavors became secondary to his literary and philosophical work in exile. Dante is considered the first of the “three crowns” of Italian literature, the other two being Boccaccio and Petrarch. The work of Dante Alighieri is seen as a literary bridge between the divine focus of medieval literature and the human focus of the Renaissance.

Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi are twin brothers born and raised in Paris. They studied at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Decoratifs, where their passion for film and fine art led them to study animation. During the course of their nearly 50-year-long career, they have received the Ministry of French Culture’s Prix de Rome, an arts residency at the Villa Medici, the title of Chevaliers de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the Ministry of French Culture, and nationwide acclaim for their literary graphic novel adaptations in France. They have worked as animators, sequence directors, and storyboard artists on such animated films as Fantasia 2000, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Salma Hayek–produced animated adaptation of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet, and more.