His immortal work, the Divine Commeclia, depicts a vision, in which the poet is con ducted first by Virgil, the representative of human reason, through hell and purgatory; and then by Beatrice, the representative of revelation; and finally by St. Bernard, through the several heavens, where lie beholds the triune. God. The name Commedia was given to the work by the poet himself—because, beginning with the horrible, it ends cheerfully; and because. in respect of style, it is lowly, being written in the vulgar tongue. The epithet Divine was added by the admiration of after-times. Hell is represented in the poem as a funnel-shaped hollow, formed of gradually contracting circles, the lowest and narrowest of which is at the earth's center. Purgatory is a moun tain rising solitary from the ocean on that side of the earth that is opposite to us; it is divided into terraces, and its top is the terrestrial paradise, the first abode of man. From this, the poet ascends through the seven planetary heavens, the heaven of the fixed stars, and the " primum mobile," to the empyrean, or fixed seat of God. In all parts of the regions thus traversed, there arise conversations with noted personages, for the most part recently deceased. At one time, the reader is filled with the deepest sor row, at another, with horror and aversion; or the deepest questions of the then phi losophy and theology are discussed and solved; and the social and moral condition of Italy, with the corruptions of church and state, are depicted with a noble indignation.
Fifty-two years after the poet's death, the republic of Florence, at the instigation of Boccaccio, set apart an annual sum for public lectures to explain the Divine Conudy to the people in one of the churches, and Boccaccio himself was appointed first lecturer. The example was imitated in several other places of Italy. The works of these men are among the earliest commentaries on D. that we possess. The number of editions of the
work amounts by this time to about 300. Only a few, in addition to the commentaries above mentioned, deserve notice. They are: that printed at Fuligno in 1472—the earliest of all; the Nidobeatine edition at Milan (1478); the first Aldine edition (1502); the first Cruscan edition (1695); that of Volpi (1727); of Venturi (1732); of Lombardi (1791), and with additions and illustrations in 1815, 1821, and 1822; of Dionisi (1795); of Ugo Foscolo (Loud. 1842-43). A reprint of the Fuliguo edition above mentioned, together with those printed at Jesi (1472), at Mantua (1472), and at Naples by Francisco del Tuppo (about 1478), appeared at London, in 1838, under the superintendence of sir Antonio Panizzi, and at the expense of lord Vernon.
The Divine. Commedia has been translated into almost all European languages. Two translations of the whole into Latin have been printed, one by Carlo d'Aquiuo (1728), and lately by Piazza (1848). In French, there are a number of translations both in prose and verse. The earliest, by Grangier, in 1596, is still the nearest to the original in form, but none is good. The German translations are numerous, and such as no other modern language can equal in faithfulness. Kannegiesser has translated the whole in the measure and rhyme of the original (4th edition, leip. 1843); king John of Saxony's translation is said by some to be the best. Tho chief English translations are Boyd's (1785) and Cary's (1814), in blank verse (see " Chandos Classics," London, Warne & Co.); Wright's (1833), in triple rhymes; Cayley's, in the original ternary rhyme (the Inferno, 1801, the Purgatory, 1853, the Paradiso in 1854, with notes in 1855); br. John Carlyle's, the _Inferno, in prose, with commentary (1849): Fred. Pollock's, in blank verse (1854); H. W. Longfellow's (1867), in blank verse, with D.'s ternary arrangement of lines. D. wrote other works.