Similarly, there was a time when the second part of the Summa (the section on morality) was sold separately by some enterprising Dominican Friars because of its singular popularity. KEEP IT TOGETHER (Don’t cut the tour short)Īs I mentioned, the Inferno has merited the bulk of students’ exposure to the great Dante Alighieri. But I would like to propose three ways in which Dante’s magnum opus can indeed be read as an inspired illumination of the Angelic Doctor. Dante was not, of course, a mere illustrator of the thought of Aquinas, and there are innumerable facets of The Divine Comedy that merit serious study: his use of Italian, 14th century history, its place in the genre of epic poetry, and many more. Even more interesting is that The Divine Comedy has often been called “The Summa in Verse,” reflecting the deep understanding of things human and divine in these two medieval cathedrals of writing. Interestingly enough, this unnatural division happened to another of my favorite medieval works, St. One of the tragedies of modern education is that many people have read Dante’s Inferno, but few have ascended to the heights of the rest of that great and unified work, The Divine Comedy. This is the first of the series The Summa in Verse.
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