Vita Nova

I am rereading Dante's "Vita Nova" which was the precursor of his

"Divine Comedy" with the central figure of Beatrice as the personification

of secular love which, after her death, led the poet to the doorstep

of divine love that transcends the boundaries of the ego-self. In the

"Divine Comedy" this development takes the shape of the pilgrim's

progress through the tribulations of Purgatory and Hell with the

encounter of the torturous path of the sinners and their redemption

from sin through expiation that leads to grace. But is grace pre-determined

or the result of free will in Dante's universe? I would say both if we

consider Dante to be the secular poet of daily life in the end of the 13th

century and the beginning of the 14th century Florence.