Along the division lines are the holy women, the Virgin, Eve,
Rachel, Beatrice, Sarah, Rebecca, Judith, and Ruth, Saint Anne and Saint
Lucia, and the saints, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, Adam, Moses,
Saint Francis, Saint Benedict, Saint Augustine, Saint Peter, and in the
midst, the Everlasting Glory of the Universe, whose light so fills the
Rose that "naught can form an obstacle against it."
THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY.
THE PARADISE.
The ascent to Paradise was accomplished by a fixed gaze into Beatrice's
eyes, by which Dante, like Glaucus, was made divine, and by which he was
lifted, with incredible swiftness, through the heavens. As soon as he had
fixed his eyes on Beatrice's, who in turn looked towards heaven, they
found themselves in the Heaven of the Moon, whose luminous yet pearl-like
light enfolded them. While Beatrice was explaining to him that the spots
on the moon were not caused by the varying degrees of atmospheric density,
as he had supposed, but by the Divine Virtue infused in divine measure
through the angelic dwellers in the first heaven, he met Piccarda, his
sister-in-law, whose brother, Corso Donati, had torn her from her convent
to wed her to Rosselin della Tosa, soon after which she died. Here also
was Costanza, daughter of Roger I. of Sicily, grandmother of that Manfredi
whom he had seen in Purgatory.
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