Paradiso

The second part and the radiant climax to Dante's awe-inspiring epic, in a definitive new translation
Having plunged to the utmost depths of Hell and climbed Mount Purgatory in the first two parts of "The Divine Comedy," Dante now ascends to Heaven, guided by his beloved Beatrice, to continue his search for God. As he progresses through the spheres of Paradise, he grows ever closer to experiencing divine love in the overwhelming presence of the deity. Examining eternal questions of faith, desire, and enlightenment, Dante exercised all of his learning and wit, wrath and tenderness in his creation of one of the greatest of all Christian allegories.

About The Author

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. He followed a normal course of studies, possibly attending university in Bologna, and when he was about twenty he married Gemma Donati, by whom he had several children. He had first met Bice Portinati, whom he called Beatrice, in 1274, and when she died in 1290, he sought distraction by studying philosophy and theology and by writing La Vita Nuova.

During this time he became involved in the strife between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines; he became a prominent White Guelf, and when the Black Guelfs came to power in 1302, Dante, during an absence from Florence, was condemned to exile. He took refuge first in Verona, and after wandering from place to place - as far as Paris and even, some have said, to Oxford - he settled in Ravenna. While there he completed The Divine Comedy, which he began in about 1308. Dante died in Ravenna in 1321.