There is also Petrarch's Mount Ventoux, where the poet finds not the New
Jerusalem but "the height of human contemplation," and where he resolves
to stop "idling about" and to seek henceforth "the one, the good, the
true, the steadily abiding" (at least in thought). Not a perfect analogue
to Book 10, of course, but there are resonances...
Genevieve Guenther
On Sun, 30 Nov 2003, Tom Bishop wrote:
> (For Anne Prescott)
> Do you mean Mounts specifically designated Contemplation, or just any old
> mounts of visionary destiny? If the latter, then I suppose Nebo/Pisgah
> would be the main antetype, though Moses, of course, was looking at what he
> specifically would NEVER get to because he had sinned. Just because one can
> see it from a sublime place doesn't mean one can reach it. An admonitory
> thought perhaps. Whether Nebo was taken up specifically as a type of
> contemplation in commentaries might be worth looking into. It's hard to
> imagine it wasn't, but I don't have particular texts to hand.
>
> Tom
>
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