scinated by Dante's corporeality. One of them, Bonaguinta da Lucca, wants to know what makes Dante such a superior poet, and he reacts enthusiastically to Dante's response. Finally, nothing in the other canticles can compare emotionally with the moment in canto 30 of Beatrice's appearance and Virgil's disappearance. Dorothy Sayers, again demonstrating her epigrammatic knack, says that "between the Inferno and the Purgatorio we pass from the imagery of Michelangelo to the imagery of Fra Angelico." In the first two cantos of Purgatorio we can already sense this new spirit of beauty, serenity, and gentleness. Dante climbs out of Hell to his figurative redemption at a uniquely appropriate time and season, at sunrise on Easter Sunday at the vernal equinox. (That Easter and the equinox did not actually coincide in 1300 bothers only the very literal minded.) The day, the week, the solar year, the church's liturgical calendar are all at the moment of renewal. Shortly after their arrival on the mountain, Dante and Virgil are accosted by an old man who turns out to be Cato of Utica, an ancient Roman who, by a special privilege has been freed from Limbo to serve as porter of the mountain. This special privilege is particularly puzzling, since Cato had killed himself after unsuccessfully fighting against Caesar and Pompey. One might have expected to find him in Hell and there not doing easy time in Limbo, but in the wood of suicides or in Judecca. The solution to this mystery is twofold. On the one hand, Cato is a type of liberty, since he killed himself rather than succumb to imperial domination. Even though Dante is himself a supporter of the principle of Empire, Cato's instinct for liberty is exemplary, especially in Purgatory, the place that celebrates and perfects Christian liberty through humility and self-sacrifice. This liberation is possible because of Christ's sacrifice, and in Il Convivio Dante actually calls Cato a type of Christ: "And ...
