LeggoDante
  1. Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
  2. mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
  3. ché la diritta via era smarrita.

“Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.”

Inferno · Canto I · 1–3

Every reader
deserves a guide.

You can read Dante alone. But reading him together, line by line, is a different experience altogether: the language opens up, the images take shape, the meaning stops slipping away.

Request a lesson
I About

Twenty years on stage with Dante

Matteo Cima reading Dante's Inferno during a walking performance
Matteo Cima · Actor and interpretive reader

My name is Matteo Cima: I'm an actor, interpretive reader and professional voice talent based in Bergamo, Italy. I trained as an actor with Claudio Morandi at CUT – Centro Universitario Teatrale in Bergamo, and went on to work with Paolo Nani, Pierluigi Cantini and Cristian Di Domenico, alongside diction and dubbing courses at CTA – Centro Teatro Attivo in Milan under Pino Pirovano.

  • 2005 Won the Lauro Dantesco, Italy's national award for best young reader of Dante, reading the Inferno in the church of San Francesco in Ravenna, in front of the poet's tomb.
  • since 2001 Teaching interpretive reading at CUT Bergamo.

The same voice, now put to work for anyone who wants to learn to read Dante.

II The method

What learning to read Dante means

It's not just about understanding the words. Reading Dante means recognizing a structure — the meter, the rhymes, the echoes between cantos — and, at the same time, stepping into a symbolic world that still speaks today about guilt, desire, justice and hope.

Learning to read him means gaining the tools to keep doing it on your own, canto after canto, with more confidence and more pleasure.

III Who it's for

Who this path is for

  • Studentswho need to tackle the Comedy for school or university and want to actually understand it, not just pass the exam.
  • Curious readerswho've always put Dante off and finally want to face him with a guide by their side.
  • Returning readerswho read Dante years ago and want to come back to him with more mature eyes.
  • Teachers and enthusiastslooking for new angles to bring the Comedy to their own audience.
IV Introduction

Watch a preview

A short introduction: the voice, the tone, and the way I work through the lines.

Video coming soon

V Events

Public readings

I've been bringing the Comedy off the page for years: open gatherings, meant for hearing Dante read aloud and discussed together, with no preparation required.

  • 2024 · 2025

    The Inferno, on foot

    A walking production devoted to Dante's Inferno for Art2Night, through the old town of Bergamo.

  • 2023

    Three cantos for Bergamo TV

    Cantos V and XXVI of the Inferno and canto XXXIII of the Paradiso.

  • 2012

    Lectura Dantis of the Purgatorio

    Porta Sant'Agostino, Bergamo.

  • 2007

    The complete Comedy

    Teatro Comunale, Inzago.

The schedule of upcoming public readings will be posted here soon. Write to me to be notified when a new date is set.