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Henry Longfellow Virtual Birthday Celebration
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Bring your coffee cake and join us for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 214th birthday, hosted by Mount Auburn Cemetery!
As we celebrate the birth of America’s most famous poet, we also remember the legacy of Italy’s for the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death. Christian Dupont, Secretary-Librarian of the Dante Society of America, will discuss Longfellow’s travels in Florence. Although disillusioned by his first visit to Florence in his early twenties, the city of Dante’s birth nevertheless held a lifelong fascination for Longfellow, who became the first American to translate the entire Divine Comedy. Florentine scenes, such as the Ponte Vecchio, inspired some of his own poetry and his identification with Michelangelo, Florence’s famous sculptor.
Christian Dupont is the Burns Librarian and Associate University Librarian for Special Collections at Boston College. Dupont has written several essays on the collecting and reading of Dante in America, which have appeared in Harvard Library Bulletin and other journals and books. Since 2014, he has served as Secretary-Librarian for the Dante Society of America. Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters NHS is pleased to welcome Dupont back for this year’s birthday celebration.
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Image Gallery
"Ponte Vecchio," Joseph Pennell/Courtesy Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts