In a recent issue, we published a piece on Dante Della Terza, the great Dante scholar at Harvard (now in his nineties). Today, we have an expanded version on the homepage. After the magazine piece was published, I heard from Mark Helprin, the novelist, military analyst, and political writer. I had no idea he had been a Della Terza student. I would have consulted him for my piece!
Anyway, here’s Mark:
In Junior year I took advantage of Della Terza’s compassionate nature and persuaded him to let me into Italian 120 — Dante in the original — even though I had taken only one year of Italian. Della Terza was magnificent, and he and the other Dante changed my life.
Nice to see that this wonderful man is still frequenting his office in Widener three times a week. I’m sure that he has thousands of former students who love him.