![]() Such dichotomies are frequent in the work, combining pathos, sympathy, and ethical/religious condemnation. ![]() 5), the pilgrim-poet offers a meditation on love- courtly love and the dolce stil nuovo (sweet new-style) love Dante practiced-while her adulterous love story cannot but elicit condemnation from the Christian pilgrim and theologian. In meeting Francesca da Rimini in the circle of the lustful ( Inf. ![]() Thus the feminine Godhead is the sole originator of the salvation of one about to be lost forever in the second death, that of the soul. The mission to rescue him originated in Heaven with the Blessed Virgin Mary who, in turn, asked Lucia, and then Beatrice herself, to intervene on behalf of her friend. Beatrice, his muse, is the pilgrim's second and most important guide from the top of the Mount of Purgatory, the new Eden, to the Empyrean in Paradise, his inspiration and savior as the poet is lost in a dark wood. Thus, Dante the viator is chosen to visit the other world as a new Aeneas and a new Paul, combining the classical and Christian traditions. In Dante's view, Rome's providential history becomes reality as the center of Christianity and of the Holy See, through the evangelization and martyrdom of the apostles Peter and Paul. The viator is guided through Hell and Purgatory by Virgil, the Roman poet whose hero, Aeneas, founded Rome and was a privileged instrument of providential history, because Jesus, the Messiah, chose to be born under Roman jurisdiction in Palestine. The poem raises many ethical, political, and theological questions and is a profound meditation on the significance of life, free will, and Christianity. ![]() Aiding the viator (the hero-everyman or journeyman) are three female figures, Mary, Lucia, and Beatrice, constituting a female Trinity, contrasted to the three-headed monster Lucifer, and the three wild beasts who block the viator's path. It comprises 100 cantos divided into a prologue and three canticles, or cantiche (1+33+33+33) totaling 14,233 verses (13, 10+3), written in terza rima, so that, in medieval numerology, everything is based on the numbers one and three. The poem narrates the visit of a hero-everyman to the Christian underworld, the Inferno (Hell, punishment), and then to the realms of Purgatory (expiation) and Paradise (beatitude). He is most famous for the Commedia, later labeled Divina (Divine Comedy), composed from circa 1308 until his death. Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265, but from 1302 on he lived in exile for political reasons. ![]()
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