Was there ever such a year as 1921 for centenaries—centenaries, that is, of events which loom large in the history of the Christian Church? We have just celebrated in this country the seventh centenary of the Third Order of St. Francis ; we are about to celebrate that of the passing of St. Dominic ; almost simultaneously occurs the sixth centenary of the “Sommo Poeta,” Dante Alighieri, so intimately connected, spiritually and intellectually, with both the great Founders and their Orders. The Dominican Order celebrates this year the seventh centenary of its arrival in England. And attention was recently called to the fact that this same year sees the centenary of the conversion of St. Ignatius Loyola.

These coincidences lend interest to a Conference given by the eminent Italian publicist, the Marchese Crispolti, at Florence, on May 28th, in the Dominican Church of Santa Maria Novella. The distinguished orator pointed out to his hearers that Dante after having in his youth learnt grammar and the art of “composing rhymes in the vulgar tongue” and of writing Latin epistles in the schools of the Friars Minor at Santa Croce—where also he imbibed from the Franciscan surroundings and spirit his admiration for the life of the Poverello and his inclination towards mysticism—went forth at the age of eighteen to enter upon his public life. It was after the death of Beatrice, when already many other influences were partly drawing him aside from the pure influence of her memory, that the Poet, then about twenty-five years of age, felt attracted to more solid and more regular studies.