In answer to Mary’s intercession, an anticipation is granted to Dante of the vision wherein the last and perfect beatitude of man consists. The supreme experience of the soul, recognised by the great mystics from Plotinus and Augustine to Richard of St. Victor and Bonaventura, is rendered into unsurpassable poetry with the impassioned conviction that it has been the writer’s own. All ardour of desire dies away. Entering into the Divine light, uniting his intellectual gaze with the Divine Essence, he actualises all potentialities of spiritual vision therein. In the Divine light, he beholds all nature, all Being scattered in leaves throughout the Universe here united by love into one volume; the vision of the First Cause which satisfies the understanding becomes that of the Supreme Goodness which fulfils the will; and this First Cause, this Supreme Goodness, itself remaining unchanged, becomes revealed to the poet’s ever strengthening intuition as the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, in which the Person of the Word took Human Nature. A l’alta fantasia qui mancò possa; “Here power failed the lofty phantasy”--the inspired imagination of the prophet; but it left the desire and will assimilated in perfect harmony with the will of God--the Divine will revealed as universal, all-pervading, and all-moving love, “the love that moves the sun and the other stars”: L’AMOR CHE MOVE IL SOLE E L’ALTRE STELLE. FOOTNOTES: [28] “Della insufficienza del titolo è prova ed effetto il pronto e universale accoglimento, che, messo una volta sul frontespizio, trovò l’epiteto _divina_, che al generico _Commedia_ diede determinatezza e colore” (P. Rajna, _Il titolo del poema dantesco_, in _Studi danteschi diretti da_ M. Barbi, vol. iv.). [29] For details of structure and scansion, the reader should consult P. E. Guarnerio, _Manuale di versificazione italiana_; G. Federzoni, _Dei versi e dei metri italiani_; F. D’Ovidio, _Versificaizone italiana e arte poetica medioevale_. [30] _Cf._ G. Livi, _op. cit._, pp. 26, 27. [31] Traces of an earlier design have been tentatively found in various places of the first seven cantos, and associated with Boccaccio’s story of Dante having begun the poem before his exile and resumed it after the recovery of his manuscript when the guest of Moroello Malaspina. In Boccaccio’s commentary upon the opening of _Inf._ viii., Andrea Poggi and Dino Perini are represented as rival claimants for the honor of having recovered the manuscript for Dante. [32] _Cf. Conv._ ii. 5. [33] _Cf. Inf._ xxxiii. 79-84 with _Phars._ viii. 827-830. [34] See Moore’s _Time-References_. [35] _Cf._ Sonnets lx. and lxi. of _The House of Life_. [36] See in particular Parodi, “L’Albero dell’Impero,” in his _Poesia e storia nella Divina Commedia_.