Divine Commedy of Dante Alighieri Paradise XXXIII

One of the most famous songs of the Divine Comedy, the Canto XXXIII of Paradise. It is midnight on Thursday 14 April 1300. Dante is in the X sky EMPIREO and fixes his gaze on the mind of God in a vision of the unity of the Universe, having a shock and supreme satisfaction. The song focuses on St. Bernard's Prayer to the Virgin. Saint Bernard turns to the Virgin and invokes her as the highest and humblest of all creatures, the one who has ennobled human nature to such an extent that God did not disdain to incarnate in the human. In Mary's womb the love between God and men was rekindled, which made the celestial rose of the blessed germinate; she is for the latter a perennial light of charity and a source of hope for mortals. The greatness of the Virgin is such that she graciously grants every grace, often even preventing her request, since in her there are pity, magnificence, goodness. Dante, Bernardo explains, came to the Empire from the depths of Hell and saw the state of souls after death, so he begs Mary to grant him sufficient virtue to look into the mind of God. The saint gives her all his prayers that he may be granted this, which he desires for Dante more than he ever craved for himself, and asks the Virgin to dispel every veil that obscures the poet's mortal eyes. He finally begs her to keep Dante's feelings pure after such a vision, as the Queen of Heaven can get everything she wants, and invites her to accept his prayer which is ideally joined by all the blessed of the rose, including Beatrice. In my free interpretation of this scene you can see on the left Saint Bernard, whom I represented with a crosier and holding the model of a city in his hands. On the right I represented the Madonna who with her cloak protects the people of that historical period. In this year 2021 there are important celebrations for the great poet Dante Alighieri. This work is one of my original illustrations of the Divine Comedy made with my exclusive SMART-ART mosaic technique supported by Artificial Intelligence. file 9000x6000 300dpi