Dante's Inferno

Enrico Mercuri is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, where he leads research, and co-supervises doctoral students. As a lawyer he has contributed to the drafting and interpretation of Australian Federal taxation law. Enrico’s formation included having Dante’s Inferno read to him by his mother in his early years. This was followed by formal education in which he was awarded the university medal in Italian and wrote an Honours dissertation on Dante. He committed to only ever read the Divine Comedy in the original vernacular or in Italian. In 2022, for completeness and comparative assessment, Enrico elected to include English translations in his research. In keeping with his contemporary approach to academic research, Enrico maintains a parallel program at UNSW Sydney that employs data analytics. It is being utilised to identify and comparatively analyse the poetic form between the original and various English translations of the Divine Comedy. This analysis will culminate in subsequent publications.

David Blaiklock has received a Distinguished Teaching Award from the Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools (ACAUDS) and a Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning from the Australian Office for Learning and Teaching. David’s design practice is internationally recognised, including Beijing Opera Art International Poster Biennale (2024), Shenzhen International Poster Festival, China (2023), International Eco-poster Triennial ‘the 4th Block’, Ukraine, Hong Kong International Poster Triennial (2010), awarded Gold and Bronze, Adelaide Fringe 2009 National Poster Competition and 2006 Australian Poster Annual. In terms of academic research, David focusses on cross cultural communication, social advocacy, and the nature of expertise within Illustration professional practice and education. In line with these interests, the illustrations developed for this translation of Dante’s Inferno have contributed to doctoral research into Illustration professional practice which examines the nature of ‘vision’, ‘visual language’ and ‘empathy’ as forms of Illustration expertise.