In May of 1283, on a Florentine vicolo, Dante Alighieri encountered Beatrice Portinari and announced: “incipit vita nuova” (here begins a new life).¹ He had first seen her nine years prior, but this time she addressed him. As he described it: “While walking down a street, she turned her eyes to where I was standing faint-hearted and, with that indescribable graciousness. . . . she greeted me so miraculously that I felt I was experiencing the very summit of bliss.”² In time, this experience would poetically