D.
13th January 1836.
Very dear Sir and Excellent Friend,
... The interpretation of the Vita Nuova depends upon knowing what portions of it are to be taken first, and what portions are to be taken last. This enigmatic booklet contains thirty-three compositions (vide your Index), relating to the thirty-three cantos of each section of the Commedia. These thirty-three poetic compositions are to be divided into three parts, according to those three sections, and to the three predominant canzoni of the Vita Nuova. The central canzone, which is “Donna pietosa,” is the head of the skein, and from that point must the interpretation begin; and then one must take, on this side and on that, the four lateral sonnets to the left, and the four to the right—(the last one to the right has been somewhat altered by Dante, with the designation of one stanza of an incomplete canzone, but it is in fact a sonnet, as I will prove)—and the one set of sonnets will explain the other set; and it will be seen that the death of Beatrice’s father, set forth on the left side, and the death of Beatrice herself, set forth on the right side, of the central canzone, mean one and the same thing. This is the first part of the enigma.
On this side and on that follow the two canzoni, placed symmetrically—viz. “Donne che avete intelletto d’amore” on the left, and “Gli occhi dolenti per pietà del core” on the right. In the former it is decided that Beatrice is to die; in the second, Beatrice dead is lamented; and the one canzone explains the other. And thus, proceeding from one side to the other, collating the ten compositions to the right with the ten to the left, we come finally to the first and the last sonnets of the Vita Nuova, which contain two visions; and the last vision, “Oltre la spera che più larga gira,” explains the first vision, “A ciascun’alma presa e gentil core.” When the interpretation goes on these lines, this sonnet becomes as clear as possible. Dante, assuming his reader to be already cognizant of the mystical language, and to be capable of solving by this process his work which has the character of a knot, wrote: “The true judgment as to the said sonnet was not then seen by any one, but now it is manifest to the simplest.”... The central part [of the Vita Nuova], which constitutes the Beatrice Nine,[86] consists of nine compositions—i.e. the central canzone, with four sonnets on one side and four on the other....
Recently I have been applying myself to a study of the first Holy Fathers of the primitive Church; and they say plainly that they, in the inner Sacerdotal School, explained the mysteries of religion, protesting at the same time that they could reveal nothing of this to the profane. I have passages from St Basil, a light of the Greek Church, which show that these personages acted like the gentile school....
Your truly devoted and obliged
G. Rossetti.