To prove his
love of music, the episode of Casella were enough, even without
Boccaccio's testimony. The range of Dante's study and acquirement would
be encyclopedic in any age, but at that time it was literally possible to
master the _omne scibile_, and he seems to have accomplished it. How
lofty his theory of science was, is plain from this passage in the
_Convito_: "He is not to be called a true lover of wisdom (_filosofo_)
who loves it for the sake of gain, as do lawyers, physicians, and almost
all churchmen (_li religiosi_), who study, not in order to know, but to
acquire riches or advancement, and who would not persevere in study
should you give them what they desire to gain by it.... And it may be
said that (as true friendship between men consists in each wholly loving
the other) the true philosopher loves every part of wisdom, and wisdom
every part of the philosopher, inasmuch as she draws all to herself, and
allows no one of his thoughts to wander to other things."[17] The
_Convito_ gives us a glance into Dante's library. We find Aristotle (whom
he calls the philosopher, the master) cited seventy-six times; Cicero,
eighteen; Albertus Magnus, seven; Boethius, six; Plato (at second-hand),
four; Aquinas, Avicenna, Ptolemy, the Digest, Lucan, and Ovid, three
each; Virgil, Juvenal, Statius, Seneca, and Horace, twice each; and
Algazzali, Alfrogan, Augustine, Livy, Orosius, and Homer (at
second-hand), once.
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