Chasing Beatrice

If Dante had left a journal, what would it say about how he came to write his masterpiece, The Divine Comedy? What if he actually took a journey into a Hell-on-Earth and then continued upwards towards the stars? If his great love, Beatrice, had not died young after all, could he find her? If so, was there still time for them? Beginning with an aggrieved father's request to repair his daughter's reputation-which meant it was time to write again- at the pace of a theme park ride the reader and Dante set out across the horizon of history from pagan times up through the early 1300s on an Easter Weekend pilgrimage in 1302. Seeking the woman he loves, the poet first meets a cast of characters with immutable assignments in the city of Dis. Surviving this frightening place, with his friend, da Forli, he continues his quest, buoyed by tales of a nunnery where a beautiful woman now lives. Sightings of a woman who might be his Beatrice are described not by whispery souls but by sinners seeking to accomplish a heavenly repose. The poet sees their dream and their redemptive strivings as being like his own. Whether in references to the old and new testaments as taught by the Catholic Church or in reprises of Roman history or in recollections of Medieval Italy, embroiled in the factional enmity of families and political parties, always in the background is a human love story. Let the reader participate in this imagination and join Dante in Chasing Beatrice.