At the end of Purgatorio, Dante meets Matilda in the earthly paradise. My question is simple: who is she? What was her significance? Has anyone any idea?
At the end of Purgatorio, Dante meets Matilda in the earthly paradise. My question is simple: who is she? What was her significance? Has anyone any idea?
Last edited by Poetaster; 05-03-2015 at 01:12 PM.
'So - this is where we stand. Win all, lose all,
we have come to this: the crisis of our lives'
"Here Dante meets Matilda, a woman whose literal and allegorical identity "is perhaps the most tantalizing problem in the Comedy."" - Wikipedia (the quote is by Dorothy Sayers).
Wikipedia notes further, "Critics up to the early twentieth century have connected her with the historical Matilda of Tuscany, but others suggested a connection with the dream of Leah in Canto XXVII." References include Lawrence Binyon and Mark Musa.
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