Vita Nuova

Dante’s first masterpiece in an enticing new translation by one of our most beloved teachers of Italian literature and culture.

Part love story, part instruction manual, part spiritual journey, Dante’s “little book,” the Vita Nuova, has had a profound and far-reaching influence on global culture and is considered by many to be the perfect expression of the medieval ideal of courtly love, as well as an essential precursor to Dante’s sublime poetic apotheosis, the Divine Comedy.

Now Joseph Luzzi, celebrated author of books about Italian literature and culture and a lifelong lover and teacher of Dante’s poetry, gives us a version of the Vita Nuova that is fresh, contemporary, and approachable―as vital and vivid as Dante’s original Tuscan dialect―rendered in a voice that will entice a new generation of readers to swoon over one of the most heartbreaking stories of unfulfilled love in all of world literature.

Reviews/Praise

“Perhaps this lovely little Liveright edition deserves to become the new standard.”
― Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review

“Joseph Luzzi has given Dante’s book a new life indeed: his is a Vita Nuova for the XXI century.”
― Alberto Manguel, author of A History of Reading

“Luzzi’s translation of the Vita Nuova is a marvel. In addition to its semantic accuracy, it conveys the unique tone and lyricism of Dante’s testament to Beatrice. She comes alive on the page here more vividly than any other English version since Dante Gabriele Rossetti.”
― Robert Harrison, Professor of Italian, Stanford University and author of The Body of Beatrice