SOURCE: "The Ethical and Political Background of the Divine Comedy," in Mediaeval Culture: An Introduction to Dante and His Times, Vol. I, translated by William Cranston Lawton, 1929. Reprint by Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1958, pp. 175-354.

In this excerpt from an essay originally written in 1907-10, Vossler examines the intensity of Dante's passion for Beatrice, which he considers too extreme to be accepted at face value.

There is some ground for the surmise that Dante in early youth came into close relations with the Franciscans. His religious and political convictions and sentiments, which, as we have seen, were closely allied to the tendencies of the order; a tradition mentioned by the commentator Francesco da Buti (1354-1406), and current in the Franciscan order; a passage, somewhat dubious, to be sure, in the Commedia (Inferno, XVI, 106 sqq.), and finally, perhaps, the fact that the poet was buried beside the Church of...