Witte and others after him have supposed that the _Convivio_ represents an alienation from Beatrice; that the Philosophy, which Dante defines as the amorous use of wisdom, is a presumptuous human science leading man astray from truth and felicity along the dangerous and deceptive paths of free speculation. There is, however, nothing in the book itself to support this interpretation,[18] and, indeed, a comparison between the second canzone, _Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona_, and the first canzone of the _Vita Nuova_ points to the conclusion that the personification of philosophy is but a phase in the apotheosis of Beatrice herself. The _Convivio_ is the first fruit of Dante’s labours to fulfil the promise made at the end of the book of his youth; his knowledge of literature and philosophy has immeasurably widened, his speculations on human life and nature have matured, and his prose style, in its comparative freedom and variety, its articulation and passages of spontaneous eloquence, shows a vast progress from that of the _Vita Nuova_. There are passages in the _Convivio_ which appear to be contradicted in the _Divina Commedia_. One of the most curious is the treatment of Guido da Montefeltro, who, in _Conv._ iv. 28, is “our most noble Italian,” and a type of the noble soul returning to God in the last stage of life, whereas, in the _Inferno_ (Canto xxvii.), he is found in the torturing flames of the evil counsellors. Several opinions are directly or indirectly withdrawn in the _Paradiso_; but these are to be rather regarded as mistakes which, in the light of subsequent knowledge, Dante desired to rectify or repudiate; such as the theory of the shadow on the moon being caused by rarity and density, based upon Averroës, and a peculiar arrangement of the celestial hierarchies, derived from the _Moralia_ of St. Gregory the Great. And, in the _Purgatorio_, the poet discards his “dread of infamy,” when he dares not meet Beatrice’s gaze in the Garden of Eden; he casts aside the allegorical veil he had tried to draw over a portion of the past, and makes the full confession which we find in Cantos xxx. and xxxi. In the fourth treatise, an erroneous sentence attributed to Frederick II. (in reality a mutilated version of the definition of nobility given by Aristotle in the _Politics_) leads Dante to examine the limits and foundation of the imperial authority, the divine origin of Rome and the universal dominion of the Roman people, the relation of philosophy to government; a theme which he will work out more fully and scientifically in the _Monarchia_. The result is two singularly beautiful chapters (iv.-v.); a prose hymn to Rome, an idealised history of the city and her empire. It is the first indication of the poet’s conversion from the narrower political creed of the Florentine citizen to the ideal imperialism which inspires his later works.