Plato

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Dante mentions Plato in Limbo alongside Socrates, as one of the great spirits of antiquity who lacked faith but were distinguished by natural reason alone (Inf. IV 134). In Purgatory, Virgil indicates him and Aristotle as the greatest representatives of human wisdom, the summit that the human mind can reach without grace (Purg. III 43). According to the notes, Dante knew Plato mostly indirect, via Cicero and Calcidius's translation of the Timaeus, and recognized his greatness while placing him, like the other pagan sages, outside salvation. In Paradise, the Platonic doctrine on the arrangement of souls in the heavens is rejected in theory by Beatrice, but used by Dante as a poetic tool to render visible the different degrees of beatitude.