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When he approached the summit of Mount Purgatory in Purgatorio, Dante suddenly turned to see that his faithful guide, Virgil, was no longer at his side. Now, in the Empyrean, something similar happens, as Beatrice returns to her rightful place in order to resume her praise of God.
At first, Dante could only see the Empyrean symbolically. Now that he’s drunk from the river of light, he sees flowers as saints and the sparks of light as ministering angels. He also sees firsthand how the light of God is distributed, by God’s providence, throughout the universe.
The true home of all the blessed is with God in the Empyrean, a heaven of pure light beyond time and space. Dante sees the blessed systematically arranged in an immense white rose: like a hologram, a three-dimensional image, the rose is formed from a ray of light reflected off the outer surface of the Primum Mobile (30.106-17).
The Empyrean is the highest sphere of Heaven, in which God, the angels, and the saints dwell. The Empyrean is the summit of Dante ’s journey through the afterlife, and it’s in this light-filled space that he experiences a firsthand vision of God.
Dante’s Paradiso – Canto 31. Dante now sees the whole of Heaven open itself to his sight like a great white rose. The saints, seated in their ranks, are attended by countless angels who, like bees among flowers, continually bring them the love of God from the center of that immense amphitheater.
The central image of the Empyrean is a vast, luminous white rose, with God at the center and the saints arrayed around Him in concentric "petals." This is the "great flower" to which Dante alludes in this canto, and which he will describe in greater detail in Canto 32.
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Why do the Cantos in Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy total one hundred? Why and how does Dante glorify Virgil in The Divine Comedy? What type of love does Dante have for Beatrice at the...
