Note 88 — LISZT
Reading edition
The final passage is said to have been conceived as an expression of the thought in these lines of Dante (from the twenty-first canto of the "Paradiso"):
"I saw rear'd up, In color like to sun-illumined gold, A ladder, which my ken pursued in vain, So lofty was the summit; down whose steps I saw the splendors in such multitude Descending, every light in heaven, methought, Was shed thence."
—Translated by H. F. Cary.