ABSTRACT

I. The possibility that the Moslem models of the Divine Comedy may easily have reached Italy and the Florentine poet from Moslem sources having been sufficiently proved, one question alone remains to be answered. Was the mentality of Dante, as revealed in his works, antagonistic to the ready assimilation of these models? For, obviously, no contact, however close, could beget imitation if diversity in language, religion, race, philosophy and art had inspired the Florentine poet with an aversion to the culture of the Arabs. In answer to this question, it may at once be said that all the evidence points to the contrary.