Associate Professor and Department Chair Karl Whittington has published a new piece of research in Dante Studies, the Journal of the Dante Society of America. In “Diagrammatic Formats from Page to Wall: Dante and the Strozzi Chapel, Revisited” Prof. Whittington explores a monumental diagrammatic fresco of Hell in the Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella in Florence by Nardo di Cione in the 1350s, long identified as the first painting to depict Hell using the structure invented by Dante in the Divine Comedy. Rather than comparing the fresco to other depictions of Hell or other traditions of illustrating Dante’s poem, Professor Whittington instead examines this fresco in dialogue with other diagrammatic wall-paintings of the period, arguing that this unusual format was chosen for the painting in order to shift the way it was read and interpreted, focusing the viewer on its macro-structures and tapping into traditions of authority associated with diagrams.  The article can be viewed here: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/872080