 Philosophy itself is the “love of wisdom,” and Dante’s central metaphor for representing it is the poetic celebration of a noble lady, a donna gentile, an act that, like Guinizelli, he sees as involving the influence of cosmic powers. His poetry, comes into being out of love and virtue [Conv. 1.1.14] because his nature is responsive to the influence of the “movers” of the universe, the intelligences, whose loving understanding determines “the most noble form of heaven” [2.5.19] as they in turn respond to “the love of the Holy Spirit” [2.5.14]. Their cosmic activity is a continual translation of understanding into love and natural process, and it is this which causes Dante to sing [Conv. 2, Canzone, 1–9]: