Infinite Beauty of the World

Jason M. Baxter is Associate Professor of Humanities at Wyoming Catholic College. Trained at the University of Notre Dame, his research has focused on the Boethian commentary tradition, the twelfth-century poet, Bernard Silvestris, and the influence of Latin platonism on Dante. He is also author of the introductory A Beginner’s Guide to the Divine Comedy, published in 2018.

• CONTENTS: From Macrobius’s Sacrum Poema to Dante’s Comedìa – The View from Above and the Vision of the Heart – Universaliter et Membratim: The Imago Mundi and Dante’s Volume – The Failed Encyclopedism of Hell – The Garden of Eden and the Universal Garden – Innominis/Omninominis: Dante, Mirrors, and the Infinite Names of God in Paradiso – Nova Creatura and Canticum Novum.

«The Infinite Beauty of the World offers a fascinating interpretive journey towardsricher appreciation of the Commedia as a cosmological poem. Baxter compellinglyinvites us to encounter Dante anew as a poet who seeks to show his readers the wholeof reality while embracing, in wonder, its divine mystery.» (Vittorio Montemaggi, Senior Lecturer in Religion and the Arts, King’s College London,author of Reading Dante’s Commedia as Theology: Divinity Realized in Human Encounter)«Jason Baxter’s new book provides the first extensive study of the tradition of theimago mundi and its significance for Dante. Drawing on a wealth of materials – biblicalcommentaries, glosses on ancient poets, spiritual treatises, and encyclopaedic works ofvarious kinds – Baxter explores how medieval culture developed a rich set of practicesof mental visualization so as to ‹see› the cosmos in its totality from above, and he showshow Dante exploited such traditions. Elegantly written and richly documented, Baxter’sbook offers an important new approach to Dante’s encyclopedism.» (Simon Gilson, Agnelli-Serena Professor of Italian, University of Oxford)