Scholar Saints and Boccaccio's Trattatello in Laude di Dante

[...] in his discussion of the sun and moon and the two swords in De monarchia, Dante resolutely interprets the metaphors according to the literal sense meant in the context of Scripture, as might St. Thomas himself.82 Where Dante departs from Thomas's understanding of figurative language is in his assurance that a human author might have recourse to the allegory of scripture.