The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📕

them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.”

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Forgetful that it was in the hands of the Saracens. ↩

The heathen Gods were looked upon by the Christians as demons. Hence Florence was the city of Satan to Dante in his dark hours, when he thought of Mars; but in his better moments, when he remembered John the Baptist, it was “the fairest and most renowned daughter of Rome.” ↩

The Lily on the golden florin of Florence. ↩

To gain the golden florin the study of the Gospels and the Fathers was abandoned, and the Decretals, or books of Ecclesiastical Law, so diligently conned, that their margins were worn and soiled with thumb-marks. The first five books of the Decretals were compiled by Gregory IX, and the sixth by Boniface VIII. ↩

A prophecy of the death of Boniface VIII in 1303, and the removal of the Holy See to Avignon in 1305. ↩

The Heaven of the Sun, “a good planet and imperial,” says Brunetto Latini. Dante makes it the symbol of Arithmetic. Convito, II 14:⁠—

“The Heaven of the Sun may be compared to Arithmetic on account of two properties; the first is, that with its light all the other stars are informed; the second is, that the eye cannot behold it. And these two properties are in Arithmetic, for with its light all the sciences are illuminated, since their subjects are all considered under some number, and in the consideration thereof we always proceed with numbers; as in natural science the subject is the movable body, which movable body has in it ratio of continuity, and this has in it ratio of infinite number. And the chief consideration of natural science is to consider the principles of natural things, which are three, namely, matter, species, and form; in which this number is visible, not only in all together, but, if we consider well, in each one separately. Therefore Pythagoras, according to Aristotle in the first book of his Physics, gives the odd and even as the principles of natural things, considering all things to be number. The other property of the Sun is also seen in number, to which Arithmetic belongs, for the eye of the intellect cannot behold it, for number considered in itself is infinite; and this we cannot comprehend.”

In this Heaven of the Sun are seen the spirits of theologians and Fathers of the Church; and its influences, according to Albumasar, cited by Buti, are as follows:⁠—

“The Sun signifies the vital soul, light and splendor, reason and intellect, science and the measure of life; it signifies kings, princes and leaders, nobles and magnates and congregations of men, strength and victory, voluptuousness, beauty and grandeur, subtleness of mind, pride and praise, good desire of kingdom and of subjects, and great love of gold, and affluence of speech, and delight in neatness and beauty. It signifies faith and the worship of God, judges and wise men, fathers and brothers and mediators; it joins itself to men and mingles among them, it gives what is asked for, and is strong in vengeance, that is to say, it punishes rebels and malefactors.”

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Adam of St. Victor, “Hymn to the Holy Ghost”:⁠—

“Veni, Creator Spiritus,
Spiritus recreator,
Tu dans, tu datus coelitus,
Tu donum, tu donator;
Tu lex, tu digitus,
Alens et alitus,
Spirans et spiritus,
Spiratus et spirator.”

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Where the Zodiac crosses the Equator, and the motion of the planets, which is parallel to the former, comes into apparent collision with that of the fixed stars, which is parallel to the latter. ↩

The Zodiac, which cuts the Equator obliquely. ↩

Milton, Paradise Lost, X 668:⁠—

“Some say, he bid his angels turn askance
The poles of earth, twice ten degrees and more,
From the sun’s axle; they with labor pushed
Oblique the centric globe: some say, the sun
Was bid turn reins from the equinoctial road
Like-distant breadth to Taurus with the seven
Atlantic Sisters, and the Spartan Twins,
Up to the tropic Crab: thence down amain
By Leo, and the Virgin, and the Scales,
As deep as Capricorn; to bring in change
Of seasons to each clime: else had the spring
Perpetual smiled on earth with vernant flowers,
Equal in days and nights, except to those
Beyond the polar circles; to them day
Had unbenighted shone; while the low sun,
To recompense his distance, in their sight
Had rounded still the horizon, and not known
Or east or west; which had forbid the snow
From cold Estotiland, and south as far
Beneath Magellan.”

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The Sun. ↩

The Sun in Aries, as indicated in line 9; that being the sign in which the Sun is at the vernal equinox. ↩

Such is the apparent motion of the Sun round the earth, as he rises earlier and earlier in Spring. ↩

No eye has ever seen any light greater than that of the Sun, nor can we conceive of any greater. ↩

How the Son is begotten of the Father, and how from these two is breathed forth the Holy Ghost. The Heaven of the Sun being the Fourth Heaven, the spirits seen in it are called the fourth family of the Father; and to these theologians is revealed the mystery of the Trinity. ↩

The moon with a halo about her. ↩

The spirit of Thomas Aquinas. ↩

The stairway of Jacob’s dream, with its angels ascending and descending. ↩

Whoever should refuse to gratify thy desire for knowledge, would no more follow his natural inclination than water which did not flow downward. ↩

Albertus Magnus, at whose twenty-one ponderous folios one gazes with awe and amazement, was born of a noble Swabian family at the beginning of the thirteenth century.