Whether Dante knew Greek is uncertain. He was familiar with Platonism and Neo Platonism, and with the doctrines of Aristotle, which had come into Italy through the works of Avicenna and Averrhoes. Many others be fore him had imagined the arcana of the world beyond the grave; from the Bible he knew the story of the 'Witch of Endor,) the visions of Isaiah and Ezekiel, the Revelation of Saint John; and besides the descriptions in the ninth book of the 'Odyssey) and the sixth book of 'The ./Eneid,) he had as examples which he far excelled, many medieval legends: 'The Vision of Saint Paul,' The Voyage of Saint Brendan,' 'The Vision of Tunalus,' 'The Pur gatory of Saint Patrick,) 'The Vision of Fra Albertico,> 'The Vision of Wettin' and the 'Alberici Visio.> He conceived the plan of the in early manhood; it is supposed that he wrote seven cantos of the (Inferno) before he was banished from Florence. Whether he incor porated that portion in his work is not known; but he must have begun it anew. It was prob ably finished before 1314, for in the 13th canto of the 'Paradiso> Henry VII had not as yet taken his place amid the throng that formed the Sempiternal Rose, and Pope Clement V was still alive.
After Dante's death the almost immediately became widely known in manuscript copies, but the original has never as yet been found, to settle many disputed readings. Within 50 years, Florence, which had never allowed the poet to return, and 20 years after he was buried at Ravenna had stigmatized him as a rebel, established a chair for the study of his works, the first incumbent being Boccaccio. Nearly all the other Italian cities did the same. After the invention of printing there were many editions of the 'Divine Comedy.) There are four of the 15th century; those printed by Aldus in 1502 and 1515 are generally taken as the basis of the modern texts. Those of the Giuntina and of the Della Crusca, in the 16th century, are valuable. In the next century only three were issued. In the first 80 years of the 19th century 250 different editions appeared. The whole number is at the present time not far from 400. Many of them have been illustrated, beginning with the Florentine edition of 1481. Among great artists who engaged in this labor were Botticelli, Michelangelo, Federigo Zuocaro and Giovanni Strada, Bernadino Pocetti, John Flaxman, Peter van Cornelius, Karl Vogel von Vogelstein, Francesco Scaramuzza and Gustave Dore. Dori's coarse and ill-drawn pictures have had a vogue far beyond their merits. Parts of the poem have been set to music, as for instance, the Francesca da Rimini episode by Rossini and also by several other composers; the first lines of the (Purgatorio) by Robert Schumann ; those of the ninth canto by Girolamo Alessandro Biaggi. A monk, Matteo
Ronto, a contemporary of Dante's, translated the whole work, line for line, into Latin hex ameters. In the 15th century it was translated into Catalan and Provencal. There are nearly 50 German versions, one of the best is by King Johann of Saxony 1877). It may be read in more than 20 other languages and dialects, including Hebrew and Russian. Chaucer was the first to translate parts of the poem into English. Milton versified a few lines. The Rev. Henry Boyd in 1802 published the first complete English version. He was fol lowed by the Rev. Henry Frances Cary, whose blank verse paraphrase is well known. In 1820 Lord Byron translated the Paolo and Francesca episode in terza rima. In 1867 Longfellow brought out his unrimed translation, which seeks variety by the use of the feminine endings at regular intervals. Some of his interpretations of it are incorrect, and he was often misled by fancied resemblances between Italian and Eng lish words; but it had great success. Dr. Thomas W. Parsons made the study and trans lation of the 'Comedy) his life work. He pub lished the 'Inferno) in 1857, other portions at intervals, and the whole was issued after his death in 1893. The latest metrical version, like Cary's in blank verse, is by Professor Courtney Langdon of Brown University. The version runs line for line, facing the latest revised Italian text, and it is provided with a com mentary, in which the translator embodies his life-long familiarity with Italian and study of Dante ; the 'Inferno) came out in 191& John Carlyle, brother of Thomas, translated the (Inferno) in 1855 into English prose; with the continuation by A. J. Butler, also accompanied by the Italian text; this edition is useful. Charles Eliot Norton's careful prose version in three volumes with explanatory notes was brought out in 1893. For a good text edition, with bibliography, consult 'La Divina Com media,) edited by Charles H. Grandgent (Bos ton 1909-13). There are hundreds of lexicons, commentaries and other aids to the understand ing of Dante, published in all languages, be ginning in 1328 with that of Jacopo della Lana. We may mention the latest 'La Divina Corn media di Dante Alighieri, Riveduta nel testo e commentata da Giovanni A. Scartazzini) (Leip zig 1874-82). Scartazzini's convenient 'Hand book to Dante) was translated by Thomas Davidson andpublished with corrective notes and many additions (Boston 1887). Koch's 'Dante Catalogue) (Ithaca 1900) contains a thorough critical bibliography up to that date.