The Natural Process Of Life: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, Lines 34 - 51
Dante the pilgrim has asked the pressing question of how immaterial souls can take on material attributes like leanness.To answer that, Virgil has offered a couple of unsatisfying answers, then turned the lecture over to the redeemed Statius . . . who begins by discussing human digestion. As understood via Aristotle, Aquinas, and more, food is purified into blood which then coagulates into a fetus.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for the opening stanzas of Statius's remarkable and poetic description of human embryology. Dante is nothing if not surprising at every turn.If you'd like to help support…
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