After making movies about artists from different eras, including “Basquiat” and Van Gogh biopic “At Eternity’s Gate,” Julian Schnabel criss-crosses between the 14th and 21st centuries in his wildly inventive new film “In the Hand of Dante.” The drama, which premieres out of competition at Venice Film Festival on Sept. 3, follows the parallel lives of two artists who turn out to be the same person.

Schnabel’s long-gestating work is based on the eponymous book by Nick Tosches, which blends crime with literary intrigue and stems from the author’s unbounded passion for Dante Alighieri. “Hand of Dante” follows the life of a character based on Tosches, who comes from a family of New Jersey gangsters. When a handwritten manuscript of Dante’s poem “The Divine Comedy” is found in the Vatican l

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