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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: v. 109. Th' Evangelist.] Rev. c. xvii. 1, 2, 3. Compare
Petrarch. Opera fol. ed. Basil. 1551. Epist. sine titulo liber.
ep. xvi. p. 729.
v. 118. Ah, Constantine.] He alludes to the pretended gift of
the Lateran by Constantine to Silvester, of which Dante himself
seems to imply a doubt, in his treatise "De Monarchia." - "Ergo
scindere Imperium, Imperatori non licet. Si ergo aliquae,
dignitates per Constantinum essent alienatae, (ut dicunt) ab
Imperio," &c. l. iii.
The gift is by Ariosto very humorously placed in the moon, among
the things lost or abused on earth.
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
