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John T. Slattery
A Course of Lectures Delivered Before the Student Body of the New York State College for Teachers, Albany, 1919, 1920
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So also when he speaks of light he regards it not merely in its beautiful appearances but in its natural laws (Purg. XV). And when Dante comes to describe the exact color, say of an apple blossom, his splendid and unequalled power as a scientific observer of Nature and a poet is most evident. Ruskin (Mod. Painters III, 226) commenting on the passage: flowers of a color "less than that of roses but more than that of violets" (Purg. XXXII, 58) makes this interesting remark: "It certainly would not be possible in words, to come nearer to the definition of the exact hue which Dante meant—that of the apple blossom. Had he employed any simpler color phrase, as 'pale pink' or 'violet pink' or any other such combined expression, he still could not have completely got at the delicacy of the hue; he might, perhaps, have indicated its kind, but not its tenderness; but by taking the rose-leaf as the type of the delicate red, and then enfeebling this with the violet gray he gets, as closely as language can carry him to the complete rendering of the vision although it is evidently felt by him to be in its perfect beauty ineffable."
These examples of Dante's interest in scientific observation prove his fitness to be considered a representative of his age in its love for science. Instead, however, of proposing Dante as a typical example of the experimental inquiry of his age—you may say that he is sui generis—I shall call forth other witnesses.
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