Dante Alighieri

The second canticle of The Divine Comedy — Dante and Virgil climb the mountain of Purgatory, where souls atone for the seven deadly sins and prepare for Paradise. The most human and most hopeful of the three canticles, written with greater lyric tenderness than Inferno.

The third canticle of The Divine Comedy — Dante ascends through the nine spheres of Heaven with Beatrice, encounters the souls of the blessed, and culminates in the vision of God as a point of light and the rose of the redeemed. The most theologically demanding and most visually dazzling part of the poem.