M. Masseron finds a very effective way of concluding his book on Dante by recalling the centenary celebrations that took place at Ravenna in 1921. It was only in the course of the preceding century that the body of the poet had been recovered from an ignominious hiding-place and restored to its rightful tomb. The homage which he now received was like the setting of a seal on his fame and status, like the raising of a definitive monument. Or it was like an act of canonisation, performed in the name of the whole civilised community of Europe. The ‘Empire’ and the Church acted for the occasion in such perfect harmony as to make a sort of pageant representing what had been the highest earthly vision of the poet. Not that he could be deceived by any pageant. It was accordingly left to the Church to preside and to pronounce the solemn benediction. Pope Benedict XV despatched a cardinal legate and composed an Encyclical Letter. And M. Masseron is surely right in suggesting that this document deserves to be treated as still important: deserves at least to be read, Papal Encyclicals are not lightly composed, for the momentary purpose of mere long-distance speech making. To return on the metaphor used above, one may say that the ‘In Praeclara Summorum’ has something of the character of a brief of canonisation. (Among the papal documents for that year it is to be found placed precisely between two other Encyclicals composed in honour of St. Francis and St. Dominic.)