Interesting on several grounds is the Encyclical of His Holiness Benedict XV, published in the _Osservatore Romano_ of May 4th last, in which he commends to all Catholic teachers and students the study of the works of Italy’s greatest Poet. He seems to admit that a certain constraint lay upon him in the matter, that the successor of St. Peter could not afford to be silent while all the civilised world was sending up a chorus of praise. That indeed, it would befit him to propose himself as Choragus: “Jam vero tam mirifico quasi choro bonorum omnium non solum non deesse Nos decet, sed quodammodo praeesse.” Yet the eulogy which he utters, if here and there it suggests a touch of patronising, is, on the whole so spontaneous and sincere in tone, that one is inclined to forgive the half-evasion with which he manipulates the awkward fact of Dante’s fierce invective—“perquam acerbe et contumeliose”—directed against the Holy Father’s illustrious predecessors. First of all he suggests for Dante the excuse of a harassed and embittered spirit, misled by the poison of malicious tale-bearers; and next, with an appearance of candour which it would be discourteous to discount, he asks, Who denies that there were in those days; there were faults even in the ordained clergy—“Quis neget nonnulla eo tempore fuisse in hominibus sacri ordinis haud probanda?” ... a somewhat general statement which might or might not include the Infallible. For the rest, Dante is praised as a true-hearted Catholic—as indeed he was—and as an extraordinarily effective teacher of the Catholic Faith. The spirit and purpose of the _Divine Comedy_—the aim, as set forth in the famous tenth Epistle[381]—and the Poet’s treatment of his subject in his pictures of Hell, Paradise and Purgatory, all come in for hearty commendation. His ever-living treatment of an ever-living theme is rightly characterised as strikingly modern compared with the revived Paganism of some modern poets. The teaching power of his spiritual ideas outsteps the bounds of the archaic Ptolemaic system in which they are framed. True to the teaching of his great master Aquinas, he attracts moderns to that teaching by the sublimity of his poetic genius. The Pope claims to know personally unbelievers who have been converted to the Faith by the study of Dante. This emphasis on Dante’s importance as a religious teacher is interesting in view of Benedetto Croce’s recent critique, in which he dismisses the theological aspect of Dante as irrelevant. In this connection it is worth noting that a distinguished Friar has been lecturing in Rome on Dante’s theology, and directly attacking Croce for his depreciation of the same.