 The fullest expository expression of Dante’s philosophical thought is the Convivio, in which commentary on a series of his own canzoni is the occasion for the expression of a range of ideas on ethics, politics, and metaphysics, as well as for extended discussion of philosophy itself. Originally, Dante conceived of the work as a “banquet” involving “fourteen courses”—that is, fourteen treatises commenting on canzoni on the “themes of love and virtue” (Conv. 1.1.14). However, the work, which was probably, written around 1304–1307, was abandoned with only four of its treatises completed. In these surviving treatises, Dante describes the genesis of his love of philosophy, and reflects on the ability of philosophical understanding to mediate religious truth, tracing the desire for knowledge from its origin as an inherent trait of human nature to the point at which the love of wisdom expresses itself directly as love of God.