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Dante’s Seven Centuries

Dante Alighieri died 700 years ago today, at the age of 56, on the evening of September 13th, 1321, fittingly the vigil of the feast of the Holy Cross, at Ravenna, exiled from his beloved and native Florence. The inventor, if you will, of the Italian language, his best known work is of course his trilogy of the Divina Commedia, taking the reader on a pilgrimage from the Inferno, through the Purgatorio, and on into the Paradiso, through three sets of 33 cantos of some of the greatest, most sublime and theologically rich poetry ever penned.

My own words certainly cannot do the Poet justice. Pope Benedict XV wrote an encyclical on Dante in the 600th anniversary of his death, In Praeclara Summorum (April 30, 1921). The Holy Father’s does not hide his papal opinion in his opening line:

Among the many celebrated geniuses of whom the Catholic faith can boast who have left undying fruits in literature and art especially, besides other fields of learning, and to whom civilization and religion are ever in debt, highest stands the name of Dante Alighieri…

Praise the Lord

Read the Whole Article at https://catholicinsight.com/