Clavis Libri

Theme

Knowledge and Wisdom

Knowing and not knowing: knowledge, wisdom, ignorance, curiosity, education, philosophy.

Inferno

Dante Alighieri

the Limbo of the poets and philosophers (canto IV), the doctrine hidden beneath the veil of the verses (canto IX), the lesson of Aristotle's Ethics (canto XI), the soothsayers who wanted to see too far ahead (canto XX), and the "virtue and knowledge" of Ulysses' speech (canto XXVI).

Paradise

Dante Alighieri

the spots of the Moon, in which reason has short wings (canto II), the twelve wise men of the Sun (canto X), Solomon and kingly prudence, with lead on the feet (canto XIII), beatitude that is born of seeing and only afterward of loving (canto XXVIII), and the universe gathered into a volume by love (canto XXXIII).