Dr. Jonathan Juilfs

in the middle of Paradiso.

Why is there so much bitterness out of a man who is ascending the heights of paradise?

And I wrote him back and said, this is my classic answer these days, it's complicated.

But also I said to him, it's the right question to ask.

What is going on here?

And I'm going to forward an argument to you.

I'm certain it's not original to me.

I haven't done enough kind of investigative study of this to know if anybody has really championed this.

But at the heart of this, Junius was talking about the matters of kind of Italian politics, the tie that when we're talking about Italy, we're ultimately talking about its distant ancestor, Rome.

We're talking about a poet who chose Virgil as his guide through the underworld.

there is this interesting thing that the very beginning of Inferno showed us Virgil and said, you know, called him Alta Poeta, the highest of poets, gave us this sense that Dante really saw Virgil as his guiding light, as an intellect and especially as a poet.

And so in some senses, when we think about what the trajectory of paradise is going to be, which is to the beatific vision,

And we already, we had to leave Virgil behind before we even got to the earthly garden.

There's a question here that I think I've been wrestling with, I couldn't even put words to about, so how does Dante resolve the Roman question?

In his own world, in his own life.

And I think Katia Guida may be the key to maybe understanding a little bit of this.

So let's set the scene.

Junius has already talked about, you know, why do you pick a great-great-grandfather

and a great, great grandfather who comes on the scene and says, well, in my day, Florence was great.

And it really feels like that in a sense.