Ugolino. With Two Lithographs by Louis Le Brocquy. Dublin: Privately Published by Andrew Carpenter, 1979. Publisher’s black paper covers, title blind embossed on lower margin of upper cover. A fine copy of this noted Heaney rarity, housed in collectors’ solander box.

Designed by Liam Miler. Bound by Museum Bookbinders, Dublin. Limited Edition, Number 82 of a total Edition of 125. [Thirty copies, No’s 96-125 were for sale]. Signed by Seamus Heaney, Louis Le Brocquy, Liam Miller and Andrew Carpenter. 

Heaney’s translation of Dante’s Inferno (lines 1-90 of Canto XXXIII). The story of Archbishop Roger (Ruggieri) of Pisa and Count Ugolino is told in Dante’s poem.

Heaney explains that he was drawn to the material ‘because I sensed there was something intimate, almost carnal, about these feuds and sorrows of mediaeval Pisa, something that could perhaps mesh with and house the equivalent and destructive energies at work in, say, contemporary Belfast.’