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Dante Alighieri was born at Florence, Italy, in 1265 (died at Ravenna, Sept. 14, 1321) of Alichiero de Bellencione Alirthieri and his wife Bella. Politically he was a Guelph, and fought against the Ghibilines. He became a member of the Guild of Physicians and Apothecaries, since as a guild member he could participate in public life. He began writing, completing his first book (New Life) in 1294, which was poetry about "Beatrice", the name of a young girl who had died in 1290. In 1300 he was elected as one of the six Priori who ruled Florence in two-month terms, his encumbancy being from June 15 to August 15. MO factions had risen among the Guelphs, the Blacks and the Whites, Dante belonging to the Whites. Charles of Valois with his troops entered Florence in 1301 and placed the Blacks in power. Dante was falsely charged with hostility toward the Church, was convicted and assessed with a heavy fine and was perpetually excluded from public office, and in 1302 was condemned to be burned to death. By this time Dante had fled the city of Florence and joined his wife and children in San Cadenza. Withdrawing from active politics, he started writing a group of poems, partly allegorical in nature, which actually formed a connectins link between his "New Life" and the "Divine Comedy". He was at Bologna in 1304, but was expelled in 1306 with the other "Whites", going first to Padua and then to Linigiana. During this period he wrote "fie Banquet", a popularization of Scholastic Philosophy, and then disappeared from recorded history for some years. After the election of Emperor Henry VII, and in anticipation of the Visit of the Emperor to Italy, in 1309 he wrote "De Monachia", presenting the picture of the Emperor as the healer of all the ills of Italy. Dante met Henry VII in 1311, and later wrote to him, taking him to task for delaying an attack on Florence. Florence reacted with a decree of perpetual exile from chat city, without amnesty. The writings of Dante shaped Italian poetry and left his mark on modern literature. His greatest work was the "Divine Comedy", which he composed in three books:- Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, completing the last at Ravenna about 1317. THE DIVINE COMEDY is an allegory of human life in the form of a vision of the world of Eternity, intended to convert a corrupt society from sin to grace, Dante recounts • vision granted him in the Jubilee Year of 1300, which was intended to lead him from a sinful life to the ways of God. In the vision he passes through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, speaking to individual souls in each place, describing the punishments and rewards, and learning; what God has in store for him and the whole world. the journey through Well with the Roman poet Virgil begins Holy Thursday night and ends on Easter Sunday at 5:00 A.M. At dawn on Easter Virgil leads him into Purgatory and entrusts his trip through the earthly paradise and Paradise itself to Beatrice or. Easter Wednesday morning. Beatrice leads him through Paradise to the Throne of God. THE STAMP DESIGNS are by Casimira Dabrowska. The Lire 10 is taken from the Disputa del Sacramento by Raphael, the fresco on Theology in the Camera della Segnatura in the Vatican Palace (Cf. Vatican Notes, Vol. XII, 04, p.10) and the other three were Inspired by originals by Sandie Boticelli which he did to illustrate the Divine Comedy. Reference for the scene on the Lire 40 stamp is Canto I of Hell, verses 32 ff., which relates that Dante wandered from the right road into the Dark Wood of Sin. He tries to escape by climbing a beautiful mountain, but is turned back successively by a Leopard, a Lion and a Wolf, which are images of sin identified respectively with Lust, Pride and Avarice, or with the three types of sin which can damn unrepentant souls to one of the three main divisions of Hell First rose, a Leopard, nimble and light and fleet,(Virgil leads Dante through the Upper Hell and the two parts of the Nether Hell, and then into Purgatory, leads him up the mountain of Purgatory as far as the Earthly Paradise). The scene on the Lire 70 stamp is from the beginning of The Purgatory. Purgatory is pictured as a mountain on an island at the South Pole, with two lower terraces of Ante-Purgatory, followed by St. Peter's Gate which is at the entrance to the Seven Cornices of Purgatory, above which, at the top of the mountain, is the Earthly Paradise. The first three Cornices make up lower Purgatory and the fourth middle Purgatory, while the last three are upper Purgatory. At sunrise of Easter Sunday the Ship of Souls arrives at the Island of Purgatory from the mouth of the River Tiber with the newly dead, steered by an angel. On the stamp we see Dante and Virgil about to start the ascent of the mountain, and at the upper right the angel and the Ship of Souls. We quote from Purgatory, Canto II, verses 12 ff. And to I as sometimes at the approach of dayThe design on the L.200 of Dante and Beatrice recalls the paradise. Actually, Beatrice appears to Dante in the Purgatory (Canto XXX) and leads him to the earthly paradise, because Virgil cannot enter there. Paradise starts from the Earthly Paradise on top of the Mountain of Purgatory. Beatrice turns her eyes toward heaven, and Dante fixes his gaze on her face, and they rise to the First Heaven. Beatrice gazed on heav'n and I on her;When Dante and Beatrice arrive in the First Heaven, the Heaven of the Noon, the scene depicted on the L.200 takes place. He sees a group of souls (at the left of the picture by Sandro Soticelli, but not shown on the stamp)(Paradise Canto III, vv.7 ff.) But what I saw so carried me awayHeaven, as depicted by Dante, consists of ten successive levels, the last of which is the Empyrean. Here St. Bernard prayed to the Blessed Virgin that Dante may behold God, which favor is granted. Dante looks on the Blessed Trinity and the Sacred Humanity of Christ, but his power to describe fails him, and all that he remembers is that his will is totally surrendered to the love of God. |
| (From Vatican Notes, Volume XV, Number 6,May-June 1967 , Pages 3-5) |
