THE PRINCIPLE OF HOPE

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order of visible objects becomes in the final cantos of ‘The Divine Comedy’ a highly symbolic sketch of unnarnable contents. The paradise of the saints in Giotto's ‘Last
Judgement’ is festively clear, the thrones of the patriarchs stand austerely, an arena of angels' heads and gleaming gold rises solidly behind the thrones. Whereas Dante's
geography introduces figures and solidities from the objective­real world into the ‘Paradiso’ only with metaphorical language, and finally symbols from a very distant
utopia of space. Consequently, ‘The Divine Comedy’ also transforms its architecture of the seven heavens from the sphere of fixed stars downwards into the wishful
mysteries of a space of both inward and ultramundane depth. Even the external figure of light does not correspond to it, at least not that which appears in the sun and in
the mere starfire of the heaven of fixed stars, only striving towards the Empyrean. For the sun (in Dante equated with the cardinal virtue of wisdom) is indeed the place
where the Theologians reside who have become immersed in the infinite light of God; nevertheless, the circle of the sun is by no means the Empyrean, in fact (a
particular difficulty for the interpretation of Dante's hierarchy of heaven) the circles of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are placed above it as circles of courage, justice and
temperance. This means that in Dante's space there is a utopia which in its highest manifestation may correspond to the sphere of the sun, but instead of this reveals
itself in a special symbolic form which is by no means astronomical any more. As such there appears in the Empyrean, above the ‘final drive of the world ring towards
pure light’, the rose of heaven:
Light is there above, through which is clearly rendered the creator visible to that creation whose peace, alone in seeing him, is engendered.
And extending in a circular formation to such a girth that its circumference would seem too large a girdle for the sun's illumination.
The whole of its appearance, fashioned by a beam, reflects from the peak of the primum mobile from where its vigour and potential stream.
And as the hillside seems to put on a display in the water­mirror, admiring its image when its greenery and flowers are in full array,