Ruth Orkin was in Florence in the early 1950s when she met Jinx Allen, whom she asked to be the subject of a picture Ms. Orkin wanted to submit to the Herald Tribune.

Aged 14, Doris Eaton Travis was in the famous Follies show run by Florenz Ziegfeld - regarded as Broadway's first glittering song and dance extravaganza .

He is then led up through Purgatory, and, in the final poem, to Paradise, where he meets a transfigured vision of Beatrice, the girl he had loved in Florence as a young man.