"“Open your mind to what I shall explain, then close around it, for it is no learning to understand what one does not retain.”"

"Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, V"

Not a king, nor captain of hosts, but a solitary pilgrim set upon the stair.

As Dante once was led from depth to height, learning by sight the order of things, so this figure climbs from stage to stage, gathering from each the grain of truth it yields.

From Eve’s first choice to Dorian’s final knife, they climb in silence, listening, not speaking.

In them, the reader finds a place: the quiet presence that threads all these stories together, walking the long path by which art turns the world into a stage for knowledge.