"THE CHRISTIAN HOMER"

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 289, 31 August 1908, Page 7

"THE CHRISTIAN HOMER"

ftvoo r. DANTE CELEBRATIONS. THE POPE AND THE KING OF ITALY. (BT TELEGRAPH—PBESS ASSOCIATION— COPTRIGHT.) Rome, August 28. The committee in charge of the Dante cele-' brations at Ravonna (where Dante died) have invited King Emmanuel of Italy and the Pope to participate. , The Pope has subscribed £400 to the organisation fund, and will send a representative, to the celebrations. There is a Dante society in England, which country, in the intervals'of subscribing to the Shakespeare memorial fund, will no doubt find time to send some money to aid tho projected celebrations in honour of the great (Italian poet., A festival in Dante's honour, at Florence, the city of his birth, was opened by the King of Italy on May 11, 1805, when a largo statue of Dante, by Pazzi of Ravenna, was uncovered. In April, 1593, an exhibition of objects relating to Dante and his works was held in London. The poet was born on May 14, 1263, and died at Ravenna on September 11, 1321. His "Divine Commedia" was first printed ■in 1172. Up to the' age of ,88 years Dante worked and fought in courts and on. battle-fields for the better government of Florence and tho general organisation of Italy. Humiliated by exile and failure, Dante then withdrew from publio life to study and the tien, and it is said that. all his works, except the "Vita Nuova'," were' written in solitary exile. The "Vita Nuova" tells of his love for Beatrice, which is believed to have been jilatonic. - Dante has been called the poet of the religious life of the Middle Ages, and .the Christian Homer. . ■