Born: Florence, in 1265, probably late May. Education: Details of his education are conjectural, but he was raised as a gentleman and was an avid student of philosophy and poetry. Military Service: Served in the Florentine army cavalry in campaign against Arezzo, 1289; fought in battle of Campaldino. Family: Married Gemma di Maretto Donati in 1294 (affianced 1283), three sons and one daughter. Career: Met Beatrice Portinari, 1274 (died 1290); friend of Guido Cavalcanti, q.v., from 1283, and associated with group of dolce stil nuovo poets around him; involved in Florentine civic affairs: served on people’s council, 1295-96, and other councils, 1296 and 1297, and diplomatic missions to San Gimignano, 1300; one of the six priors governing Florence, 1300; in charge of road works in Florence (probably in preparation for a siege), 1301; while on a mission to Pope Boniface VIII in Rome in 1301 his party (the Whites) was defeated in Florence and he was exiled: sought refuge at courts of various Ghibelline lords in northern Italy: in San Godenzo in 1302, Forli, 1303, and Verona, 1303; broke with other White exiles, 1304, and probably went to the university town of Bologna; agent in court of Franceschino Malaspina in the Lunigiana, 1306; in Lucca, c. 1306-08; strong supporter of the Holy Roman Empire, Henry VII of Luxemburg, 1309-13 (probably wrote De monarchia at this time); in Lucca, c. 1314-16; refused conditional amnesty from Florence, 1316; at court of Can Grande della Scala in Verona, 1317, and court of Guido Novello da Polento in Ravenna, c. 1317-21: sent by Guido on diplomatic mission to Venice, 1321. Died: 14 September 1321.
Publications
Collections
The Latin Works, translated by A.G. Ferrers Howell and P.H. Wicksteed. 1904.
Opere, edited by Michele Barbi and others. 2 vols., 1921-22; 2nd edition, 1960.
The Portable Dante, edited by Paolo Milano. 1947; revised edition, 1978.
Selected Works. 1972.
Opere, edited by Fredi Chiapelli. 6th edition, 1974.
Opere minore, edited by Domenico de Robertis and Gianfranco Contini. 1979-84.
Tutti le Opere. 1981.
Verse
Commedia, edited by Natalino Sapegno. 1957, also edited by Giorgio Petrocchi, 4 vols., 1966-67, and by Umberto Bosco and Giovanni Reggio, 1979; edited (with translation) by Charles S. Singleton, 6 vols., 1970-75; translated by Henry Boyd, 3 vols., 1802; numerous subsequent translations as The Divine Comedy, including by H.W. Longfellow, 3 vols., 1867; Laurence Binyon, 1933-46; L.G. White, 1948; Dorothy L. Savers and Barbara Reynolds, 3 vols., 1949-62; John Ciardi, 1954-70; G.L. Bickersteth, 1955; John D. Sinclair, 3 vols., 1961; Kenneth Mackenzie, 1979; C.H. Sisson, 1980; Allen Mandelbaum, 3 vols., 1980-84; Robert Pinsky, 1994; Mark Musa, 1995; Peter Dale, 1996; Elio Zappulla, 1998; as Dante’s Inferno: Translations by Twenty Contemporary Poets, edited by Daniel Halpern, 1993; translated into prose by Charles Eliot Norton, 3 vols., 1891-92; also by J. Carlyle, T. Okey, and P.H. Wicksteed, 3 vols., 1899-1901; as The Vision, translated by Henry, Francis Cary, 3 vols., 1814; as Presenting Paradise: Dante’s Paradiso: Translation and Commentary by James Torrens, 1993; as Inferno III, translated by Patrick Creagh and Robert Hollander, 1993; as Hell, translated by Steve Ellis, 1994; as Cantos from Dante’s Inferno, translated by Armand Schwerner, 2000; as Purgatorio, translated by W.S. Merwin, 2000.
La vita nuova, edited by Michele Barbi. 1932, also in Opere, 1960, also edited by Domenico De Robertis, 1980; translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in The Early Italian Poets, 1861; also translated by Mark Musa, 1957, revised edition, 1973; Barbara Reynolds, 1969; as The New Life, translated by William S. Anderson, 1964.
Eclogae latinae, edited by E. Pistelli, in Opere. 1960; translated by P.H. Wicksteed, 1902; also translated by W. Brewer, 1927.
Rime, edited by D. Mattalia. 1943, also edited by Gianfranco Contini, 2nd edition, 1946, and by Michele Barbi and F. Maggini, 1956; as Il Canzoniere, edited by G. Zonta, 1921; translated by Patrick S. Diehl, 1979.
Lyric Poetry, edited by Kenelm Foster and Patrick Boyde. 2 vols., 1967.
Eighteen Poems, translated by Anthony Conran. 1975.
Other
De vulgari eloquentia, edited by A. Marigo, revised edition, edited by P.G. Ricci. 1957, and by Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo, 1968; translated by A.G. Ferrers Howell, 1890; also translated by P.H. Wicksteed, in Latin Works, 1904; as Literature in the Vernacular, translated by Sally Purcell, 1981; translated by Steven Botterill, 1996.
De monarchia, edited by E. Rostagno, in Opere. 1960, also edited by P.G. Ricci, 1965, and by Bruno Nardi, in Opere Minori, 1979; translated by A.G. Ferrers Howell, 1890; as Monarchy, and Three Political Letters, translated by Donald Nicholl and Colin Hardie, 1954; as On World-Government, edited and translated by H.W. Schneider, 1957; as Monarchy, translated by Prue Shaw, 1996; as Dante’s Monarchia, translated with commentary by Richard Kay, 1998.
Epistolae: The Letters, translated by P.H. Wicksteed. 1902; edited and translated by Paget Toynbee, 1920; revised edition, edited by Colin Hardie, 1966.
Questio de aqua et de terra, edited by E. Pistelli, in Opere. 1960; translated by P.H. Wicksteed, 1902, and in Latin Works, 1904.
Il convivio, edited by G. Busnelli and G. Vandelli. 1964, and by M. Simonelli, 1966; as The Banquet, translated by P.H. Wicksteed, 1903; also translated by William W. Jackson, 1909; Christopher Ryan, 1989; Richard H. Lansing, 1990.
De situ, edited by V. Biagi. 1907, and by G. Padoan, 1968. Literary Criticism, edited by Robert S. Haller. 1973.
The Stone Beloved (selections). 1986.
The Fiore and the Detto d’amore: A Late 13th-century Italian Translation of the Roman de la Rose, Attributable to Dante, translated by Santa Casciani and Christopher Kleinhenz. 2000.
Critical Studies:
Studies in Dante edited by Edward Moore, 4 vols., 1896-1917, reprinted 1968; Dante’s Ten Heavens: A Study of the Paradiso by Edmund Garratt Gardner, 1904; In Patriam: An Exposition of Dante’s Paradiso by John S. Carroll, 1911; Dante and Aquinas by P.H. Wicksteed, 1913; Dante: Essays in Commemoration, 1321-1921, 1921; Symbolism in Medieval Thought and Its Consummation in the Divine Comedy by H.F. Dunbar, 1929; Essays on the Vita Nuova, 1929, and The Lady Philosophy in the Convivio, 1938, both by James E. Shaw; Medieval Culture: An Introduction to Dante and His Times by Karl Vossler, translated by William Cranston Lawton, 2 vols., 1929; Dante the Philosopher by Etienne Gilson, translated by David Moore, 1948; An Essay on the Vita Nuova, 1949, in Dante Studies, 1-2, 1954-58, Journey to Beatrice, 1958, and Dante’s Commedia: Elements of Structure, 1977, all by Charles S. Singleton; A Handbook to Dante Studies by Umberto Cosmo, translated by David Moore, 1950; Dante as a Political Thinker by A. Passerin d’Entreves, 1952; Dante’s Drama of the Mind: A Modern Reading of the Purgatorio, 1953, Dante, 1966, and Trope and Allegory: Themes Common to Dante and Shakespeare, 1977, all by Francis Fergusson; Life of Dante by Michele Barbi, translated by P. Ruggiers, 1954; Introductory Papers on Dante, 1954, and Further Papers on Dante, 1957, both by Dorothy L. Sayers; Dante and the Idea of Rome, 1957, and Dante’s Italy and Other Essays, 1984, both by Charles T. Davis; Dante and the Early Astronomers by Mary A. Orr (2nd edition) 1957; Structure and Thought in the Paradiso, 1958, and Medieval Cultural Tradition in Dante’s Comedy, 1960, both by Joseph Mazzeo; The Ladder of Vision: A Study of Dante’s Comedy by Irma Brandeis, 1960, and Discussions of the Divine Comedy edited by Brandeis, 1961; Dante, Poet of the Secular World by Erich Auerbach, translated by Ralph Manheim, 1961; Essays on Dante, 1964, and Dante’s Vita Nuova, 1973, both by Mark Musa; Dante by Thomas G. Bergin, 1965, as An Approach to Dante, 1965, and From Time to Eternity: Essays on Dante’s Divine Comedy edited by Bergin, 1967; Dante: A Collection of Critical Essays edited by John Freccero, 1965, and Dante: The Poetics of Conversion by Freccero, 1986; The Mind of Dante edited by U. Limentani, 1965; Dante Alighieri: His Life and Works, 1965, and A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante, 1968, both by Paget Toynbee; Events and Their Afterlife: The Dialectics of Christian Typology in the Bible and Dante by A.C. Charity, 1966; Dante and His World by T.C. Chubb, 1966; Enciclopedia dantesca, 5 vols., 1970-75; Dante’s Style in His Lyric Poetry, 1971, Dante Philomythes and Philosopher: Man in the Cosmos, 1981, and Perception and Passion in Dante’s Comedy, 1993, all by Patrick Boyde; The Greatness of Dante Alighieri by Herbert William Smith, 1974; Dante’s Epic Journeys by David Thompson, 1974; Companion to the Divine Comedy: Commentary by C.H. Grandgent, 1975; Dark Wood to White Rose by Helen M. Luke, 1975; Woman, Earthly and Divine, in the Comedy of Dante by Marianne Shapiro, 1975; The Two Dantes, and Other Studies by Kenelm Foster, 1977, and Cambridge Readings in Dante’s Comedy edited by Foster and Patrick Boyde, 1981; Dante Commentaries, 1977, and Dante Soundings: Eight Literary and Historical Essays, 1981, both edited by David Nolan; Dante’s Paradiso and the Limitations of Modern Criticism: A Study of Style and Poetic Theory, 1978, Dante: The Divine Comedy, 1987, and Dante’s Inferno, Difficulty and Dead Poetry, 1987, all by Robin Kirkpatrick; The Discipline of the Mountain: Dante’s Purgatorio in a Nuclear World by Daniel Berrigan, 1979; Essays on Dante’s Philosophy of History, 1979, and Dante’s Journey of Sanctification, 1990, both by Antonio C. Mastrobuono; Dante, Poet of the Desert: History and Allegory in the Divine Comedy by Giuseppe Mazzotta, 1979, and Critical Essays on Dante edited by Mazzotta, 1991; Dante Alighieri by Ricardo J. Quinones, 1979; Dante the Maker by William Anderson, 1980; The World of Dante: Essays on Dante and His Times edited by Cecil Grayson, 1980; Studies in Dante by Robert Hollander, 1980; Dante by George Holmes, 1980; Shadowy Prefaces: Conversion and Writing in the Divine Comedy by James Thomas Chiampi, 1981; Irenic Apocalypse: Some Uses of Apolcalyptic in Dante, Petrarch and Rabelais by Dennis Costa, 1981: A Reading of Dante’s Inferno by Wallace Fowlie, 1981; The Figure of Dante: An Essay on the Vita Nuova by Jerome Nazzaro, 1981; Dante and the Roman de la Rose: An Investigation into the Vernacular Narrative Context of the Commedia by Earl Jeffrey Richards, 1981; Dante in the Twentieth Century edited by Adolph Caso, 1982; Confessions of Sin and Love in the Middle Ages: Dante’s Commedia and St. Augustine’s Confessions by Shirley J. Paolini, 1982; Dante’s Incarnation of the Trinity by Paul Priest, 1982; Essays on Dante by Karl Witte, 1982; The Door of Purgatory: A Study of Multiple Symbolism in Dante’s Purgatorio, 1983, and Dante’s Griffin and the History of the World: A Study of the Earthly Paradise, 1989, both by Peter Armour; Dante’s Angelic Intelligences: Their Importance in the Cosmos and in Pre-Christian Religion by Stephen Bemrose, 1983; Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio: Studies in the Italian Trecento in Honor of Charles S. Singleton edited by Aldo S. Bernardo and Anthony L. Pelligrini, 1983; Dante in America: The First Two Centuries edited by A. Bartlett Giamatti, 1983; Dante, Chaucer and the Currency of the Word: Money, Images and Reference in Late Medieval Poetry by Richard A. Shoaf, 1983; Dante’s Poets: Texuality and Truth in the Comedy, 1984, and The Undivine Comedy: Detheologizing Dante, 1992, both by Teodolinda Barolini; Dante’s Fearful Art of Justice by Anthony K. Cassell, 1984; Pilgrim in Love: An Introduction to Dante and His Spirituality, 1984, and Dante: Layman, Prophet, Mystic, 1989, both by James J. Collins; The Political Vision of the Divine Comedy, 1984, and Dante’s Beatrice: Priest of an Androgynous God, 1992, both by Joan M. Ferrante; Chaucer and Dante: A Revaluation by Howard H. Schess, 1984; The Symbolic Rose in Dante’s Paradiso by Giuseppe C. Di Scipio, 1984; Aesthetic Ideas in Dante: ”Etterno Piacer,” 1984, and Dante: Lyric Poet and Philosopher: An Introduction to the Minor Works, 1990, both by J.F. Took; The Political Ideas in the Divine Comedy by Stewart Farnell, 1985; Dante Comparisons edited by Eric Haywood and Barry Jones, 1985, and Dante Readings edited by Haywood, 1986; Dante’s Poetry of Dreams by Dino S. Cervigni, 1986; Dante and Medieval Latin Traditions by Peter Dronke, 1986; The Reader’s Companion to Dante’s Divine Comedy by Angelo A. De Gennaro, 1986; The Transfiguration of History at the Center of Dante’s Paradise by Jeffrey T. Schnapp, 1986; Dante: Numerological Studies by John J. Guzzardo, 1987; Dante’s Poems: An Essay on History and Origins by J.M.W. Hill, 1987; The Pilgrim and the Book: A Study of Dante, Langland and Chaucer by Julia Bolton Holloway, 1987; Dante and the Empire by Donna M. Mancusi-Ungaro, 1987; Mary in the Writings of Dante by Max Saint, 1987; Dante: The Critical Heritage 1314(?)-1870 edited by Michael Caesar, 1988; The Body of Beatrice by Robert Pogue Harrison, 1988; Dante and Difference: Writing in the Commedia by Jeremy Tambling, 1988; The Divine Comedy: Tracing God’s Art by Marguerite Mills Chiarenza, 1989; A Study of the Theology and the Imagery of Dante’s Divina Commedia: Sensory Perception, Reason and Free Will by Sharon Harwood-Gordon, 1989; On the Defence of the Comedy of Dante by Giacopo Mazzoni, translated by R.L. Montgomery, 1989; The Influence of Dante on Medieval Dream Visions by Roberta L. Payne, 1989; Dante Studies in the Age of Vico by Domenico Pietropaolo, 1989; Time and the Crystal: Studies in Dante’s Rime Petrose by Robert M. Durling and Ronald L. Martinez, 1990; Dante and the Medieval Other World by Alison Morgan, 1990; Eternal Feminines: Three Theological Allegories in Dante’s Paradiso by Jaroslav Pelikan, 1990; Dante, edited by Harold Bloom, 1991; Dante’s Burning Sands: Some New Perspectives by Francesca Guerra D’Antoni, 1991; Dante as Dramatist: Myth of the Early, Paradise and Tragic Vision in the Divine Comedy by Franco Masciandaro, 1991; Word and Drama in Dante: Essays on the Divina Commedia by John C. Barnes and Jennifer Petrie, 1992; Dante and the Bible: An Introduction by Daniel H. Higgins, 1992; Cambridge Companion to Dante edited by Rachel Jacoff, 1993; Commentary and Ideology: Dante in the Renaissance by Deborah Parker, 1993; Dante and the Mystical Tradition: Bernard of Clairvaux in the Commedia by Steven Botterill, 1994; Dante’s Christian Astrology by Richard Kay, 1994; The Circle of Our Vision: Dante’s Presence in English Romantic Poetry by Ralph Pite, 1994; Mismapping the Underworld: Daring and Error in Dante’s Comedy by John Kleiner, 1994; Dante and the Middle Ages: Literary and Historical Essays, edited by John C. Barnes and Cormac O Cuilleanain, 1995; Dante Now: Current Trends in Dante Studies, edited by Theodore J. Cachey, Jr., 1995; Sense Perception in Dante’s Commedia by Edward G. Miller, 1996; Dante’s Political Purgatory by John A. Scott, 1996; Dante’s Interpretive Journey by William Franke, 1996; Images of the Journey in Dante’s Divine Comedy by Charles H. Taylor and Patricia Finley, 1997; Dante and Governance, edited by John Woodhouse, 1997; Dante: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Amilcare A. Iannucci, 1997; The Metaphysics of Reading Underlying Dante’s Commedia: The Ingegno by Paul Arvisu, 1998; Dante and the Victorians by Alison Milbank, 1998; Lectura Dantis: Inferno, edited by Allen Mandelbaum, Anthony Oldcorn, and Charles Ross, 1998; Dante and the Knot of Body and Soul by Marianne Shapiro, 1998; Dante Alighieri: Divine Comedy, Divine Spirituality by Robert Royal, 1999; The Design in the Wax: The Structure of the Divine Comedy and Its Meaning by Marc Cogan, 1999; Dante’s Testaments: Essays in Scriptural Imagination by Peter S. Hawkins, 1999; Dante, edited and introduced by Jeremy Tambling, 1999; Dante’s Aesthetics of Being by Warren Ginsberg, 1999; Human Vices and Human Worth in Dante’s Comedy by Patrick Boyde, 2000; Sound and Structure in the Divine Comedy by David Robey, 2000; Divine Dialectic: Dante’s Incarnational Poetry by Guy P. Raffa, 2000;A New Life of Dante by Stephen Bemrose, 2000; Reading Dante’s Stars by Alison Cornish, 2000; Formulas of Repetition in Dante’s Commedia: Signposted Journeys Across Textual Space by Lloyd Howard, 2001; Dante by R.W.B.Lewis, 2001; Dante: A Life in Works by Robert Hollander, 2001.
The city in which Dante Alighieri was born and where he spent the first 38 years of his life was in his time already an important cultural centre as well as the focus of conflicting political forces having cast off its feudal allegiance it was a self-governing community, administered by its own citizens under the direction of a prosperous bourgeoisie. Although Dante’s father was not a prominent figure in the life of the city (he was perhaps a money lender) the poet claimed to be descended from the aristocracy and he was in his youth sufficiently well off to enable him to study painting, music, and letters (according to Boccaccio) and, it seems likely, to spend a year at the University of Bologna. Florence already possessed a literary tradition; Dante readily acknowledged his indebtedness to Brunetto Latini, author of the allegorizing Tesoretto, and to the poet Guido Cavalcanti (slightly older than Dante) who had brought a speculative element into the love lyric of the Provengal tradition. Dante’s literary production in fact begins with lyrics in the Cavalcanti style. Dante’s first notable work, however, was La vita nuova (The New Life), an account of his idealistic love for Beatrice Portinari, composed after her death. It is a carefully constructed composition of unique and original character: prose is interspersed with verse, serving to provide a narrative line between the lyrics and also to illuminate their meaning by exegesis of a scholastic tone. The combination of realism and suggestion of hidden meanings as well as the calculated design of the little book give the reader a foretaste of the Commedia (The Divine Comedy).
The poet’s immersion in politics following the death of Beatrice and his subsequent banishment and disillusionment altered the course of both his reading and his writing: he turned from the quasi-mystic devotion to Beatrice (and Revelation) to the study of philosophy. This shift is documented in Il Convivio (The Banquet), a long, digressive work, dealing with philosophical, ethical, and even political matters, revealing a new area of study: Aristotle, Boethius, and Virgil are authorities of recurrent reference. As in The New Life, prose is used to explicate poems but in The Banquet the prose element is far greater. Another area of his studies after his exile is disclosed by De vulgari eloquentia (Literature in the Vernacular), written in Latin, a pioneering exercise in linguistic studies in which the author attempts to define the characteristics of true Italian speech. The all but obsessive interest in political matters, a natural concomitant of his exile, is the motivation for his De monarchia (Monarchy) and his impassioned Epistolae (The Letters). These Latin items of his canon were composed in all likelihood in the years of Henry VII’s effort to reassert Imperial supremacy in Italy and probably when the writing of The Divine Comedy was already in progress.
For his ”minor works” alone—all original and significant— Dante would be accounted a major figure in Italian—and even European—literary history, but it is The Divine Comedy which has given him a unique and enduring pre-eminence. In the context of the times it is surprising that a work of such epic dimensions should not have been written in Latin—and, according to Boccaccio, Dante at first thought of using that tongue. The choice of the vernacular for his masterpiece was of crucial importance in the development of Italian literature, but the greatness of the work makes even such a determinant role merely incidental.
The prestige of the poem has long endured. Through the centuries immediately following its composition it maintained its eminence and survived through the less appreciative climate of the 17 th and 18 th centuries, gathering new vitality in the 19th and growing in popularity and esteem over the past 200 years. The scope of its attraction has been uniquely vast, rivalling that of the Homeric poems; through the years it has consistently won wide readership and critical attention in all nations of the old world and the new. It has charmed the ”man in the street” and fascinated intellectuals. For the English-speaking world, one eloquent statistic may be cited: there have been no fewer than 47 translations of the poem into English (not counting partial versions) and more are in the course of preparation.
There are many reasons for such persistent vitality just as there are many facets and levels of meaning in the work itself. For Dante, according to his letter to Can Grande, the literal substance of the poem is simply an account of the state of souls after death, with allegorical implications below the surface. But the mode of depiction is not simply expositional; it is cast in narrative form. And it is a story compellingly told, in which the protagonist, the author himself, describes his pilgrimage through the Christian realms of the after-life, Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. These are kingdoms of fancy, to be sure, in which the author is free to invent backgrounds, scenes, and events. But these kingdoms are populated by characters drawn not from inventive fancy but from the narrator’s own acquaintance, whether in experience or in his readings, and they are set forth with convincing realism. The essential ingredients for assuring the reader’s interest— movement, suspense, recognition—are present from beginning to end as the pilgrim-narrator moves from one circle of Hell, one terrace of Purgatory, or one circling Heaven to another with surprises for himself and his reader at every passage. In all of these realms the wayfarer has a companion and guide (Virgil or Beatrice) to instruct and advise him but with the tactical function also of giving life to the narrative through dialogue, more effective than simple narrational exposition in providing dramatic movement. No writer of fiction has planned his art with greater care or shrewdness. But The Divine Comedy is more than fiction. The characters, including the narrator, have suggestive symbolic dimensions, allusive and often challengingly ambiguous. As the story unrolls the reader becomes aware that the realms of fancy or theological postulate are also provinces of the world we live in, depicted with a perception fortified by learning and a commitment born of faith and hope. It is our world that we recognize behind the veil, with all its faltering waywardness, penitential meditation, and yearning for salvation and exaltation. The wayfarer too is not simply a 14th-century Florentine exile; he is Everyman, and he speaks for all of us. We are his fellow pilgrims sub specie aeternitatis.
The substance of the poem is given strength and beauty by rare technical artistry. The Divine Comedy is a masterful design, with carefully planned and harmonious proportions: all of the cantiche are of approximately the same length, and the dimensions of each canto also bear witness to the ”fren dell’arte.” Terza rima itself, with its syllogistic construction and its subliminal trinitarian implications, has also the practical uses of linkage and invitation to memorization. The poet makes skilful use, too, of such devices as alliteration, assonance, and even deft repetition. His imagery is remarkable for its variety— animals, plants, trees, and flowers mingle with historical allusions and numerological and mathematical figures in the embroidery of the poem. Some of these are lost in translation but a good translation— and there have been many such—can convey much of this accidental charm into another tongue.
So many, rich, and varied are the threads of which the cloth of The Divine Comedy is woven that the nature of the work defies simple definition. It has been called ”a personal epic”: it is assuredly a confessional autobiography. It is likewise a patient and lucid exposition of orthodox dogma. At the same time it may be seen as a great love poem, for Beatrice is the motivation and the goal of the pilgrimage; furthermore each great division ends with the same word, suggesting a vast ”canzone” of three great stanzas. Or we may see the Comedy as a ”synthesis of medieval learning,” which, at least incidentally, it is. But it is also a synthesis of the aspirations, sensibilities, and ultimate destiny of mankind. It is, most deeply, a statement of affirmation, set forth in terms of a certain time and place and contingent circumstance but valid for all times. Matter, manner, and message are blended not only with exceptional craftsmanship but with commitment and conviction. Aesthetically irresistible, the story of the extra-terrestrial pilgrimage is also on a deeper level reassuring and inspirational.
