Dante's Death Mask, Or an Intermedial Treasure Hunt in Dan Brown's Inferno

Abstract

This article aims to show how Dan Brown's thriller Inferno incorporates elements from the Divina Commedia and re-elaborates both the historical and literary figure of Dante. At the center of this investigation, largely designed as a close reading, is the intermedial dimension of the paper chase that drives the novel’s plot.

In a race against time to dismantle a biological weapon that threatens humanity, art history professor Robert Langdon comes across a series of complex objects and artifacts. Their complexity is both technical and semiotic, since they modify or combine existing media in a number of original ways, thus activating an intricate web of intermedia references. By analysing the intermedial structure of these objects, I propose to contribute to the description of the dense intertextual and intermedial network that structures the novel.