Lucia

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Lucia is recalled in the verses as the saint to whom the Virgin Mary turns so that she may succor Dante at the moment of danger: in canto II of the Inferno she is called «enemy of every cruel one» and leans beside Beatrice to urge divine aid; in canto IX of the Purgatorio she appears as a woman who lifts the poet into her arms and entrusts him to the porter angel; in canto XXXII of the Paradiso she is placed in the Empyrean sky alongside the other blessed saints. The ancient notes identify her with the Syracusan martyr blinded under Diocletian and link her, for the meaning of her name («light»), to the illuminating grace that makes known to man what is necessary for his salvation.