Miguel Asín Palacios was a Spanish scholar of Islamic studies and the Arabic language, and a Roman Catholic priest. He is primarily known for suggesting Muslim sources for ideas and motifs present in Dante's Divine Comedy, which he discusses in his book La Escatología musulmana en la Divina Comedia (1919). He wrote on medieval Islam, extensively on al-Ghazali. A major book El Islam cristianizado (1931) presents a study of Sufism through the works of Muhyiddin ibn 'Arabi of Murcia in Andalusia. Asín also published other comparative articles regarding certain Islamic influences on Christianity and on mysticism in Spain.
Thomas Aquinas, sculpture (17th century).
Ibn Rushd (Averroës), detail from the painting Triunfo de Santo Tomás by Andrea da Bonaiuto.
Statue of Dante Alighieri, at Palazzo degli Uffizi, Florence.
Dante, detail from Luca Signorelli fresco at Duomo di Orvieto.
The Divine Comedy is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of Western literature. The poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval worldview as it existed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
Dante shown holding a copy of the Divine Comedy, next to the entrance to Hell, the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory and the city of Florence, with the spheres of Heaven above, in Domenico di Michelino's 1465 fresco
Dante gazes at Mount Purgatory in an allegorical portrait by Agnolo Bronzino, painted c. 1530
Virgil
Beatrice