The Metaphysics of Dante's Comedy

Thomas Aquinas said of allegory that it is useful both to present spiritual truths to those accustomed to thinking only in the terms of sensual reality and, simultaneously, to hide them from the unworthy (St. I.1.9 res 3). In the first two canticles of the Comedy (Inferno and Purgatorio) Dante has a strong physical-sensual image: the Earth. Spiritual realities are described in terms of movement in physical space. In Inferno the pilgrim descends into a pit, in Purgatorio, he climbs a mountain. In Paradiso, the central image is light, which is, no doubt, sensual but not really physical. It is, in fact, psychical. In Paradiso, Dante's mystical-metaphysical concerns come to the fore