ABSTRACT
Ameto was then reassured, and according to the speech, he deemed that she was not that Venus whom fools call a goddess for their disordered lust, but she from whom true, just, and holy love descends among mortals. Indeed, looking at the faces of the ladies, he found them more beautiful and confident than ever, and he saw them all looking intently at that light with eyes that were able to sustain it. In fact, they seemed so aglow in it that at moments he feared they were afire, and above all Agapes and his Lia. However, leaving off such fear because of their happy faces, he quickened his sight and sought to penetrate the bright light. Accordingly, though it was very difficult for him to gather anything from it, yet just as in a shining flame one discerns the lit coal, so in that he recognized a luminous body overcoming all other brightness. 1 And he beheld it glittering with infinite sparks, looking no more or no less than a burning iron drawn from a fiery furnace; and all around it the air was full of these sparks within a halo of light. Nevertheless he could not grasp with his eyes the image of the beautiful eyes and the divine face; and while he gazed thus he heard the holy goddess speaking in this way:
