It has been inferred, therefore, that the four treatises of the Convito were not written consecutively. The Second Treatise may have been begun some time after the death of Beatrice, in 1290, time being allowed after 1290 for the completion of the Vita Nuova and a period of devotion to philosophic studies. That Second Treatise having been first written, the Treatise on Nobility, the Fourth, may have next followed; and this may have been written before the end of the year 1298. The Third Treatise may have been written later, and made to connect the Second and the Fourth. The First Treatise, or General Introduction, which has in it clear indication of a later date, may have been written last, when the whole design was brought into shape. Various reasons have been used for dating this final arrangement of the plan for an Ethical survey of human knowledge in fifteen treatises, and the suggested date is the year 1314. The whole work seems to have been planned. Besides the references to the Fifteenth Treatise, there is a glance forward to the matter of the Seventh Treatise in the twenty-sixth chapter of the Fourth. The question of date is not of great importance, and this may console us though we know that it can never be settled. Here it is only touched upon to show the significance of one or two historical allusions in the book. End of Project Gutenberg's The Banquet (Il Convito), by Dante Alighieri