Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . re had Love been treated inso grandly ideal and spiritual a manner. But in the Divina Commedia the author risesto still higher heights of passion and the purified contemplation of divine beauty. The Vita Nuova is the germ from which sprang that gigantic plant the Divina Commedia,whose roots reach deep down into the lowest bolgia of hell, while its summit bloomstransfigured in the pure light of Eternal Love. It is a mirror of the whole Universe, and,again, the history of Humanity ; more peculiarly the history of that paradise of the earth,Italy, torn and divi
Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . re had Love been treated inso grandly ideal and spiritual a manner. But in the Divina Commedia the author risesto still higher heights of passion and the purified contemplation of divine beauty. The Vita Nuova is the germ from which sprang that gigantic plant the Divina Commedia,whose roots reach deep down into the lowest bolgia of hell, while its summit bloomstransfigured in the pure light of Eternal Love. It is a mirror of the whole Universe, and,again, the history of Humanity ; more peculiarly the history of that paradise of the earth,Italy, torn and divided as it was by fraternal feuds, and of the heart of Italy, Florence,from whence the poet was banished for ever. Ungrateful Country, exclaims Michael Angelo in one of his sonnets : Ungrateful Country, who hast nursed his woesAnd killed his better fortune ! Well I seeHow on the Best, worst evils still are poured :Let his example this hard truth disclose :No greater hast thou ever bred than he,Yet bittrer exile hath no man endured !. SAN MICIIELE. us* FLORENCE. 169 A marble statue of Dante, which was uncovered for the first time during the Festivalof 1865, stands on the Piazza of Santa Croce. And within quite recent years the facadeof Santa Croce, which, like the fronts of so many Florentine churches, had been left un-finished, has been covered with dazzling white marble.* Santa Croce is the oldest and finestof all the churches belonging to the mendicant orders ; it contains a noble monument toDante, and is, in fact, the Pantheon of Florence. In the colossal space of the nave, which
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