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The Mathematics of The Divine Comedy

November 19, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

painting-of-dante-looking-at-scores-of-angels

“As God’s Creation, we experience a physical realm of differentiated entities and perceive multiplicity in our material reality. The character of Beatrice utilizes this fact in Paradiso 2 when she proposes the mirror experiment. The experiment combines mathematical, geometrical, and optical/physical principles to demonstrate spiritual truths. This experiment, especially its utilization of reflection, plants a seed in Dante, prodding him on his journey to the Divine: ‘Nature offers to the symbolic poet clearly denotable objects in-depth and in the round, which yield the analogies to the higher senses.’ [19] In the Primo Mobile, Dante the poet utilizes these same principles as he approaches the dimensionless punto of the Divine, the source and ground of all being.”[. . .]    –Matthew Canonico, University of Notre Dame: Church Life Journal, April 28, 2021

Read the full analysis here.

Categories: Odds & Ends, Written Word
Tagged with: 2021, America, Astronomy, Beatrice, Cosmos, God, Journeys, Light, Mathematics, Metaphysics, Mirrors, Optics, Paradiso, Physics, Vita Nuova

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How to Cite

Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

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