“It represents the symbolical passage of the Christian Church, preceded by the Hebrew dispensation, and followed by the disastrous effects of schism, and the corruptions induced by the unholy conduct of political Pontiffs. The soul of this solemn exhibition, the living and glorified principle of the beatitude which Religion pure and holy confers upon those who embrace it, is personified in the ‘Donna,’ to whom Dante from his earliest youth had been more or less devoted, the Beatrice of the Vita Nuova , ‘ Loda di Dio vera ,’ who concentrates in herself the divine wisdom with which the Church is inspired, whom angels delight to honor, and whose advent on earth had been prepared from all eternity by the moral virtues.