Love's Enduring Story

Whimsical Love of Cupid and Psyche

Dante and Beatrice: A Pilgrimage of Love

Tragic Love of Abelard and Heloïse

Forbidden Love of Romeo and Juliet

Napoleon and Josephine: A Love Rent by Circumstance

Love's Rejuvenation of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

When You Play in the Game of Love

Colby-Cobb Romance

Celeste Marlatt and Eli Davis

“To You, From Me”

The Romantic Nora Clench

“I hope to write of her what never yet was written of any woman.”
(Dante Alghieri, La Vita Nuova)

At the tender age of nine, Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) met Beatrice Portinari (1266–1290), declaring to his soul, “Now is your bliss made manifest,” to which it replied, “Alas! How often henceforth shall we be troubled.” Restricted by the dictates of courtly love, Beatrice ignored Dante, yet she came to embody the divine incarnation of love that inspired him throughout his life. In Divine Comedy, a literary masterpiece, Beatrice is Dante's guide on his pilgrimage through Paradise, leading him finally into the presence of the divine.

Dante, Divina Commedia: Encounter of Dante and Beatrice

14th century. Venetian School. Illumination. Libreria Marciana, Venice.