The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-11-21
a TALK on THE POET DANTE.
Prof. MuzzereIIi's Lecture Before
the Teachers Normal Glass

the IeucheF5S Normal Class
Prof. MuzzerelI Iectured before the
teachers normal class at the high school
yesterday afternoon on Dante. The lee
ture lasted an hour and a quarter, and
if the closest attention on the part of an
intelligent audience could repay the lee
turer for his efforts. he must have felt
himself amply rewarded. Prof. Muzze-
relli's style was. as usual, clear and eie-
CANT, and he displayed his well known
skill in the handling of the English Lam
guage, skill amounting to a mastery or
II, and possessed by few foreigners who
write the English tongue
or all nations of ancient or modern times
he said Italy has bequeathed to the world
the grandest cluster of genius when with
in three centuries, it has given us Dante
Petrarch, the Medicis, Ariosto, Michael
Tasso. Perhaps the greatest of all these
was Dante, who created the Italian LAM
suase ana, at the same time, made il
sure OF its place and its Immortality by
masterpiece of literature almost unriV-
aled in the annals of the world.
The Italian peninsula, during the closing
over TO intefnecine warfare. Florence had
over 20 interricince warfare. Florence has
driven out great numbers of her citizens,
ana IN the year 1904 one of them, a man Of
80, wandered into Paris and straying into
the University of La Sorbonne, engaged
IN theological argument with the most cell
ebrated doctors OF the age, vanqushing
round logic. At their entreaty, he disclosed
his identity and told them the story of his
lie. The stranger was no other than
Dante. He told of his great love for Flor
enCe and his services to her, and Of her
ingratitude; he dwelt on his love for Beat
rice, and his abiding grief for her ire
parable loss. His thoughts continually
dwelt on the invisible world whittier she
had gone, and the inspiration came to him
to depict it. Thenceforward he was filled
with the idea, which never left him day
or night.
This absorbing thought, which Dante
thus spoke of to the learned Partisan the
ologians, resulted in the sublime concep-
ton with which the world has been famil-
lar for six centuries under the name of the
divine comedy, though Dante himself sim
ply called il the comedy, his admiring
cOuntrymen being responsible for the adj
1ective. Florence. proud of the fame which
had rewarded the work of one of her citi-
zens, offered to sell him his repatriation
an offer which the poet Indignantly de-
clined. As the carnal-minded government
neglected to alter the conditions, Florence
had not the honor of being the poets
tomb. Dante died at Ravenna at the age
of 56
The idea of a journey to the Internal
regions was used before Dante by Ho-
mer and Virgil, and is found later in the
old chronicle of Saint Denis which, how
ever, IS in no way worthy of comparison
with Dante work.
In Easter week /. 500, Dante lost him
self among the mountains, and was lin
danger of being devoured by wild beasts,
when he was saved by shade which
turned out TO be that of Virgil, sent by
Beatrice to save her lovers life They
pass through the entrance to hell, which
Dante finds consists of a kind Of gigan-
tic pit divided into circles. the last OF
which is in the center of the earth In
the first circle wherein the spirits suffer
no torture. are the shades of men and
women of virtue, who lived before Christ;
in the next, where the shades are I'M
Ccasingly driven about by gusts of wind.
are the souls of those whom love has
caused TO sin. And so they progress
through all The circles, till they reach
the bottom, where Satan has his throne.
There. turning suddenly over, so that
their heads are where their heels were;
they mount up through the other half
of the earth by marrow way worn by
water, and arrive at the AntipOdes.
They see before them vast mountain,
divided into seven terraces. This is the
purgatOry. where spirits are cleansed from
their various sins to make them mt to
enter heaven.
Arrived at the top of the mountain
Dante is left by Virgil. to whom entry
into heaven is forbidden, and is guided
10y Beatrice thro' the celestial regions.
consisting of seven heavens OF ever in
creasins happiness; the moon, Mercury.
Venus. the sun. Mars, Jupiter and the
infinite empyrean, where the Deity has
his throne. Here Dante sees all the an
gels of heaven ranged in thrones around
the central shrine of inetfable glory, like
the petals of a gigantic rose, radiating
in dazzling splendor throughout the
heavens Beatrice goes to her throne, and
an arChan2el leads the poet to the Virgin,
and petitions her, in his behalf, for power
to see the divinity itself
The boon is granted, but words fail
Dante to describe the wonders he saw
ana the reader is left 10 picture 10 him
self g well as he can. the awful super
natural majesty OF the divine creator OF