tumult of political discords, proscribed and a wanderer, coming as far as
France, studied at the University of Paris, wrote "songs," that is to
say, lyrical poetry gathered into the volume entitled _The
Canzoniere_, the _Vita Nuova_, which is also a collection of
lyric efforts, though more philosophical, and finally _The Divine
Comedy_, which is a theological epic poem. _The Divine Comedy_ is
composed of three parts: hell, purgatory, and heaven. Hell is composed
of nine circles which contract as they approach the centre of the earth.
There Dante placed the famous culprits of history and his own particular
enemies. The most popular episodes of hell are Ugolino in the tower of
hunger devouring his dead children, Francesca of Rimini relating her
guilty passions and their disastrous consequence, the meeting with
Sordello, the great Lord of Mantua, ever invincibly proud, looking "like
the lion when he reposes." Purgatory is a cone of nine circles which
contract as they rise to heaven. Heaven, finally, is composed of
nine globes superimposed on one another; over each of the first seven
presides a planet, the eighth is the home of the fixed stars, and the
last is pure infinity, home of the Trinity and of the elect. The power of
general imagination and of varied invention always renewed in style, and
the warmth of passion which throws life and heat into each part, have
assured Dante universal admiration. The community of literature
pre-eminently admires the hell; the eclectic have been compelled to
assert and therefore to believe that the paradise is infinitely superior.

PETRARCH.--Petrarch, a Florentine born in exile, brought up at Avignon,
Carpentras, and Montpellier, during four fifths of his life thought only
of being a great scholar, of writing in Latin, and of obtaining the
repute of an excellent humanist. Hence his innumerable works in Latin.
But when twenty-three he was deeply affected by love for a maiden of
Avignon, and he sang of her living and dead and still triumphant in glory