Understanding Dante by John A. ScottReview by: K. P. ClarkeThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Fall, 2006), pp. 912-913Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20478089 .

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912 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXVII/3 (2006)

Ghazali, al-Qaradawi, Yasin Dutton, Ibn Ashur, Norman Calder, W B. Hallaq, and Joseph Schacht. It mainly refers to Shafi as a "master architect who offered a general scale for the various applications of Islamic legislation," and his book Risala "can be seen as an important guideline for contemporary Muslim scholars who attempt to blend Islam with the needs of a modern lifestyle" (108); see, Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'l's Al-Shafi'i's Risala: Treatise on the Foundations of IslamicJurisprudence, 2nd ed., trans. Majid Khadduri (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1987).

Dien provides a concise introduction to the topic and access to the complexity of the Islamic legal system. Many sections contain clear explanations for important concepts with

well-illustrated examples. It also provides a detailed glossary and analytical indexes. He cor rects some methodological mistakes made byWestern and Muslim scholars alike in analyzing the legal methodologies of Islamic schools. In addition to these methodological remarks he contributes to the debates on the problems of Islamic law, namely the lack of legal authority and its consequences in comparative perspective.

Understanding Dante. John A. Scott. William and Katherine Devers Series in Dante Studies, 6. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004. 466 + xxxi pp. $35.00. ISBN 0-268-04451-1.

REVIEWED BY: K. P. Clarke, University College, Oxford

One of the great challenges in approaching the work of Dante is making one's way from an adequate appreciation of the less well known works, such as the Vita Nova, or Con vivio, and integrating that reading appropriately with one's reading of the magnum opus, the Divine Comedy. University curricula do not often extend through the entire works of Dante and when they do, it is usually based on a summary preparation for the real heart of the course on the sacro poema. Understanding Dante goes a long way to help bridge this gap between the so-called minor works and the Comedy, and will become a standard handbook in any language and literature department teaching Dante.

The book begins with five chapters on the Vita Nova, the De vulgari eloquentia, the Rime, the Convivio, and the Monarchia, each examined in schematic detail under various sub-head ings. Such a prolonged discussion of these works, comprising nearly half the book's analysis of the literary texts, is one of the great strengths of Understanding Dante, for it is here that we can appreciate how these works sit beside each other in all their complexity, innovation, and sheer power.

The next five chapters analyze various aspects of the Commedia, beginning with an extended discussion of the prologue scene, Inferno 1-2, and proceed to examine the moral order of the poem, its topography and demography, Dante and classical antiquity. Finally, in a chapter entitled "The Poet of the Comedy," John Scott examines aspects such as the versi fication, rhymes, syntax, and neologisms in the poem. He has succeeded in giving us a very satisfactory set of short analyses of some of the technical aspects of the Commedia that make it such a rewarding poem to read, something not often seen in English criticism. Two closing chapters look at Dante's historical context, and the Latin epistles, the Questio de aqua et terra, and the eclogues.

There is no book quite like this in English: it is part introduction, part critical review, and part close reading, and the overall result is a very readable and stimulating survey of Dante's opera omnia. Such accessibility will make it an appropriate volume for anyone

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Book Reviews 913

approaching Dante's poetry for the first time, while it will also prove interesting to more sea soned dantisti. Scott's prose navigates with dignity and poise a very large (and at times rough) sea of secondary sources and critical problems; but the reader will feel himself to have arrived safely while also having seen a bit of action along the way.

The bibliography is up to date and has a broad sweep that leaves one satisfied but not overwhelmed and will be consulted and mined for some time to come. It is particularly pleasing to observe the courteous regard for established scholars being extended to younger, less well known scholars of excellent quality, such as Giuseppe Ledda and Claudia Di Fonzo. A couple of curious omissions, such as Ezio Raimondi's readings of Purgatorio I and IX in his Metafora e storia (Turin: Einaudi, 1970), or Ezio Cecchini's edition of the Epistola a Cangrande (Florence: Giunti, 1995), have not marred my appreciation of the documentation of the book.

Understanding Dante is a robust contribution to the series, and ensures the continuing relevance and importance of this series to all Italianists and students of medieval culture alike. The book will become, I am sure, indispensable.

Catholic Physics: Jesuit Natural Philosophy in Early Modern Germany. Marcus Hellyer. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. 336 pp. $50.00. ISBN 0-268-03071-5.

REVIEWED BY: Irving A. Kelter, University of St. Thomas, Houston

As the author of this excellent study so succinctly puts it, "The subject of this book is the transformation ofJesuit natural philosophy from a largely scholastic body of knowledge and discourse into an experimental, mathematized science" (5). In other words, Marcus Hellyer treats of the transformation of natural philosophy from a medieval to a modern body of knowledge within both a Jesuit and a Catholic context. The Jesuit and Catholic contexts are crucial in this excellent study, which is as much a work on the history of Catholicism and of the Society of Jesus, as it is a history of early modern "physics." Focusing on three Ger man universities-the smaller ones of Mainz and Wiirtzburg and the larger, more important one of Ingolstadt-Hellyer tells the story of the development ofJesuit, Catholic natural phi losophy from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries.

The book is divided into three parts: "Discourses and Institutions," "The Seventeenth Century," and "The Eighteenth Century." Three themes emerge in this study: (1) the quest for uniformity and orthodoxy and the tension between these goals and the desire to incor porate new discoveries and ideas into Jesuit natural philosophy; (2) the relationship between theology and natural philosophy, which showed itself in such issues as the hierarchical struc ture of knowledge and the "physics of the Eucharist"; and (3) the attraction of the new "experimental" philosophy to German Jesuits and their involvement in experiments with the new mercury tube and the air pump.

Hellyer begins his work with three chapters treating the "managing of philosophy" within the Society ofJesus, with the concomitant matter of attempted censorship of unor thodox ideas, a treatment of the setting up and institutional nature of Jesuit colleges in the German territories and a chapter on the basic curriculum in natural philosophy, largely based on Aristotle's works in the seventeenth century. The rest of the book chronicles in a clear and detailed fashion the topics and themes already mentioned. I especially appreciated the chapters in the second part on the physics of the Eucharist and the tension between

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