The Catholic World, Vol. 15, Nos. 85-90, April 1872-September 1872 / A Monthly Magazine

t consists of thirty-three cantos, which, with the introductory canto, make the round number one hundred. Surrounded by trials and troubles of various kinds, Da

rious study of truth, and to direct his mind to the p

ddies, in which the souls of the damned are revolving to the throne of Satan, who sits at the top of the cone. The narrower grow the circles, the more intense become the p

e work, by interweaving the most moving and striking episodes, in which well-known characters are described as receiving punishment equal to their

s, is represented in the form of a mountain, to whose summit one ascends by nine successive degrees, as the descent through the {270} funnel of hell was by nine lessening circles. At the top of the mountain is placed that earthly paradise which was lost by the sins of our first parents, and from which the way to heaven leads. Having arrived in the terrestrial paradise, Dante suddenly finds himself deserted by Virgil, who from th

on of the souls in purgatory with each other, and with those they left behind them on earth, and with the blessed in heaven. This

portion with their virtues and holiness, till he arrives at the so-called Empyrean, at the very throne of God. In the highest sphere Dante beholds the mystical rose, that is, the glory of the Blessed Virgin, who is surrounded by the highest saints and angels in the form of a rose; and among these glorified spirits he sees wit

the most part are historical characters, some of them but little removed from his own time, others contemporary; and even those which he borrows from Judaism or paganism to embellish his poem are symbolical, and have an intimate connection with some reality. On this very account we should not judge the Vision as an allegory, although in many respects it has the peculiarities of an allegorical poem. It is, rather, a mystic poem, in which the