Angeli

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In the Paradiso, within the heaven of the Primum Mobile, Dante and Beatrice contemplate the point of greatest splendor, around which nine circles of flaming spirits move. Each circle is faster than the one before it and more distant from the center, and each corresponds to one of the angelic hierarchies. The last circle, the outermost and the swiftest, is composed entirely of the Angeli, designated by Dante with the expression «Angelici ludi». These spirits partake of the joy and the virtue that descends from the angelic mind, like the other intelligences that move the heavens, and reflect the divine light according to their own nature. Their mention is placed within Dante's cosmological system, in which every celestial body receives its virtue from an angelic intelligence and transmits its influence to the sublunary world.