• Filicaja’s beautiful sonnet on Providence is thus translated by Leigh Hunt:⁠— “Just as a mother, with sweet, pious face, Yearns towards her little children from her seat, Gives one a kiss, another an embrace, Takes this upon her knees, that on her feet; And while from actions, looks, complaints, pretences, She learns their feelings and their various will, To this a look, to that a word, dispenses, And, whether stern or smiling, loves them still;⁠— So Providence for us, high, infinite, Makes our necessities its watchful task, Hearkens to all our prayers, helps all our wants, And even if it denies what seems our right, Either denies because ’t would have us ask, Or seems but to deny, or in denying grants.” ↩
• The Empyrean, within which the Primum Mobile revolves “with so great desire that its velocity is almost incomprehensible.” ↩
• Convito , III 2:⁠— “The human soul, ennobled by the highest power, that is by reason, partakes of the divine nature in the manner of an eternal Intelligence; because the soul is so ennobled by that sovereign power, and denuded of matter, that the divine light shines in it as in an angel; and there fore man has been called by the philosophers a divine animal.” ↩