Book Description

The Book from: 1319Contain book summary and analysis,Added Author Biography and pictures.Dante's letter to Lord Can Grande della Scala, concerning the Divine Comedy in general, the Paradiso in particular, and the method to be used for interpretation.To the great and most victorious lord, Lord Can Grande della Scala, Vicar General of the Principate of the Holy Roman Emperor in the town of Verona and the municipality of Vicenza, his most devoted Dante Alighieri, Florentine in birth but not in manners, wishes him a happy life through long years, as well as a continuous increase in his glorious reputation.1. The outstanding praise of your Magnificence, which watchful fame spreads abroad on flying wing, pulls different people in different directions, so that it brings some to hope in their prosperity, casts down others in fear of destruction. The report of such fame, exceeding by far that of any present day person, as somewhat beyond the truth, I judged to be somewhat exaggerated. In truth, so that this great uncertainty might keep me in suspense longer, as the Queen of Sheba came to Jerusalem, as Pallas came to Helicon, I came to Verona to be an eye-witness for myself what I had heard. And there I saw your great works, I saw your benefices and touched them; and just as I had earlier suspected excess in part in your praisers, now later I know the excess of the deeds themselves.