IX/2 Nine, the trine of trines and the magical number of Beatrice, the number that is the leading note so to speak of the mystical ten, has a special significance for Dante. The book is permeated with threeness and in this the ninth of the 99+1 Cantos of the Comedy as a whole and of the 33+1 Cantos of Inferno (it seems that Dante thought of the first Canto as an introduction to the Comedy) the poet chooses characteristically to point out the veiled and cryptic nature of his text. The form of the image as well as reflecting the style of some of my own notebooks for this project, echoes in its palimpsestic character the overlaying and interconnectedness of systems in Dante's whole oeuvre. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.