This volume is the result of verbatim lectures from Dino Bigongiari's Dante course in the Graduate School of Columbia University, from 1953 to 1955. Taken with permission and edited by Anne Paolucci, they give evidence of Biongiari's extraordinary scholarship and his sharp observations in the Socratic exchanges so dear to him. Bigongiari graduated from Columbia College in 1904 and is recognized as one of the truly great scholars of Dante and medieval culture. During his long career, he published only a few articles, always at the request of colleagues or publishers.