 The third book is perhaps the most important for the student of Dante’s knowledge and use of philosophy. Its central theme is praise of philosophy’s power, as “l’amoroso uso della sapienza,” “the loving use of wisdom,” to impart the highest happiness to those who love her, perfecting their natures and drawing them close to God, of whose majesty and wisdom her beauty is the expression. It is largely a meditation on love, understood as Dante’s response, intellectual, poetic, and psychological, to his enlightenment at the hands of the beautiful lady whom he celebrates as Philosophy.