In the Commedia, Dante first mentions the creation at the very beginning, when the protagonist has put the dark wood behind him and finds himself at the foot of the hill of virtue, where he is stopped by the leopard of lust. We are immediately given the hour of the day and season of the events about to unfold: a spring morning with the sun in the constellation of Aries, i.e., the spring equinox, precisely the time of year when, according to medieval tradition, God had created the universe: when the sun “was mounting with those stars which were with it when Divine Love first set in motion those fair things.” For one moment, as the sun of this first spring lightens the landscape, the terror which had seized Dante in the dark wood seems to give way to hope. Dante clearly feels nostalgia for the Beginning as some essential aspect of his own self: a feeling which is both sensual and intellectual. The idea of the beginning of all things allows him, imaginatively, to see and enjoy the sun and stars as “cose belle” (fair things), and not simply “good,” as Genesis has it. This first firmament possesses a pulchritudo of intimate and pristine aesthetics, like the dawn and the aura which the “things” shed on everything surrounding them.