'This brilliant beast of a book has serious designs on your attention. Beautifully written, it has all the page-turning tension of a giallo, Italian detective fiction, but the pages turn slowly since the argument is carefully plotted and highly qualified … In writing this ultimate work of Dante criticism, Ascoli inevitably courts comparisons with the ultimate author, Dante himself. Such comparisons are, for the most part, skilfully deflected by nice touches of humor and by the rare citational generosity … a magnificent book of a prize-winning kind. It attests to the singular intelligence and vigor of North American Dante studies.' David Wallace, Speculum