The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (essential books to read TXT) 📕

Mention of Nino will recur in the Notes to Canto XXXIII. and in the Purgatory, Canto VIII.

v. 88. Michel Zanche.] The president of Logodoro, another of the four Sardinian jurisdictions. See Canto XXXIII.

CANTO XXIII

v. 5. Aesop’s fable.] The fable of the frog, who offered to carry the mouse across a ditch, with the intention of drowning him when both were carried off by a kite. It is not among those Greek Fables which go under the name of Aesop.

v. 63. Monks in Cologne.] They wore their cowls unusually large.

v. 66. Frederick’s.] The Emperor Frederick II. is said to have punished those who were guilty of high treason, by wrapping them up in lead, and casting them into a furnace.

v. 101. Our bonnets gleaming bright with orange hue.] It is observed by Venturi, that the word “rance” does not here signify “rancid or disgustful,” as it is explained by the old commentators, but “orange-coloured,” in which sense it occurs in the Purgatory, Canto II. 9.

v. 104. Joyous friars.] “Those who ruled the city of Florence on the part of the Ghibillines, perceiving this discontent and murmuring, which they were fearful might produce a rebellion against themselves, in order to satisfy the people, made choice of two knights, Frati Godenti (joyous friars) of Bologna, on whom they conferred the chief power in Florence. One named M.

Catalano de’ Malavolti, the other M. Loderingo di Liandolo; one an adherent of the Guelph, the other of the Ghibelline party. It is to be remarked, that the Joyous Friars were called Knights of St. Mary, and became knights on taking that habit: their robes were white, the mantle sable, and the arms a white field and red cross with two stars. Their office was to defend widows and orphans; they were to act as mediators; they had internal regulations like other religious bodies. The above-mentioned M.

Loderingo was the founder of that order. But it was not long before they too well deserved the appellation given them, and were found to be more bent on enjoying themselves than on any other subject. These two friars were called in by the Florentines, and had a residence assigned them in the palace belonging to the people over against the Abbey. Such was the dependence placed on the character of their order that it was expected they would be impartial, and would save the commonwealth any unnecessary expense; instead of which, though inclined to opposite parties, they secretly and hypocritically concurred in promoting their own advantage rather than the public good.” G.

Villani, b. vii. c.13. This happened in 1266.

v. 110. Gardingo’s vicinage.] The name of that part of the city which was inhabited by the powerful Ghibelline family of Uberti, and destroyed under the partial and iniquitous administration of Catalano and Loderingo.

v. 117. That pierced spirit.] Caiaphas.

v. 124. The father of his consort.] Annas, father-in-law to Caiaphas.

v. 146. He is a liar.] John, c. viii. 44. Dante had perhaps heard this text from one of the pulpits in Bologna.

CANTO XXIV

v. 1. In the year’s early nonage.] “At the latter part of January, when the sun enters into Aquarius, and the equinox is drawing near, when the hoar-frosts in the morning often wear the appearance of snow but are melted by the rising sun.”

v. 51. Vanquish thy weariness.]

Quin corpus onustum Hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravat una, Atque affigit humi divinae particulam aurae.

Hor. Sat. ii. l. ii. 78.

v. 82. Of her sands.] Compare Lucan, Phars. l. ix. 703.

v. 92. Heliotrope.] The occult properties of this stone are described by Solinus, c. xl, and by Boccaccio, in his humorous tale of Calandrino. Decam. G. viii. N. 3.

In Chiabrera’s Ruggiero, Scaltrimento begs of Sofia, who is sending him on a perilous errand, to lend him the heliotrope.

In mia man fida

L’elitropia, per cui possa involarmi Secondo il mio talento agli occhi altrui.

c. vi.

Trust to my hand the heliotrope, by which I may at will from others’ eyes conceal me Compare Ariosto, II Negromante, a. 3. s. 3. Pulci, Morg. Magg.

c xxv. and Fortiguerra, Ricciardetto, c. x. st. 17.

Gower in his Confessio Amantis, lib. vii, enumerates it among the jewels in the diadem of the sun.

Jaspis and helitropius.

v. 104. The Arabian phoenix.] This is translated from Ovid, Metam. l. xv.

Una est quae reparat, seque ipsa reseminat ales, &c.

See also Petrarch, Canzone:

“Qual piu,” &c.

v. 120. Vanni Fucci.] He is said to have been an illegitimate offspring of the family of Lazari in Pistoia, and, having robbed the sacristy of the church of St. James in that city, to have charged Vanni della Nona with the sacrilege, in consequence of which accusation the latter suffered death.

v. 142. Pistoia.] “In May 1301, the Bianchi party, of Pistoia, with the assistance and favor of the Bianchi who ruled Florence, drove out the Neri party from the former place, destroying their houses, Palaces and farms.” Giov. Villani, Hist. l. viii. e xliv.

v. 144. From Valdimagra.] The commentators explain this prophetical threat to allude to the victory obtained by the Marquis Marcello Malaspina of Valdimagra (a tract of country now called the Lunigiana) who put himself at the head of the Neri and defeated their opponents the Bianchi, in the Campo Piceno near Pistoia, soon after the occurrence related in the preceding note.

Of this engagement I find no mention in Villani. Currado Malaspina is introduced in the eighth Canto of Purgatory; where it appears that, although on the present occaision they espoused contrary sides, some important favours were nevertheless conferred by that family on our poet at a subsequent perid of his exile in 1307.

Canto XXV

v.1. The sinner ] So Trissino

Poi facea con le man le fiche al cielo Dicendo: Togli, Iddio; che puoi piu farmi?

L’ital. Lib. c. xii v. 12. Thy seed] Thy ancestry.

v. 15. Not him] Capanaeus. Canto XIV.

v. 18. On Marenna’s marsh.] An extensive tract near the sea-shore in Tuscany.

v. 24. Cacus.] Virgil, Aen. l. viii. 193.

v. 31. A hundred blows.] Less than ten blows, out of the hundred Hercules gave him, deprived him of feeling.

v. 39. Cianfa] He is said to have been of the family of Donati at Florence.

v. 57. Thus up the shrinking paper.]

—All my bowels crumble up to dust.

I am a scribbled form, drawn up with a pen Upon a parchment; and against this fire Do I shrink up.

Shakespeare, K. John, a. v. s. 7.

v. 61. Agnello.] Agnello Brunelleschi v. 77. In that part.] The navel.

v. 81. As if by sleep or fev’rous fit assail’d.]

O Rome! thy head

Is drown’d in sleep, and all thy body fev’ry.

Ben Jonson’s Catiline.

v. 85. Lucan.] Phars. l. ix. 766 and 793.

v. 87. Ovid.] Metam. l. iv. and v.

v. 121. His sharpen’d visage.] Compare Milton, P. L. b. x. 511

&c.

v. 131. Buoso.] He is said to have been of the Donati family.

v. 138. Sciancato.] Puccio Sciancato, a noted robber, whose familly, Venturi says, he has not been able to discover.

v. 140. Gaville.] Francesco Guercio Cavalcante was killed at Gaville, near Florence; and in revenge of his death several inhabitants of that district were put to death.

CANTO XXVI

v. 7. But if our minds.]

Namque sub Auroram, jam dormitante lucerna, Somnia quo cerni tempore vera solent.

Ovid, Epist. xix

The same poetical superstition is alluded to in the Purgatory, Cant. IX. and XXVII.

v. 9. Shall feel what Prato.] The poet prognosticates the calamities which were soon to befal his native city, and which he says, even her nearest neighbor, Prato, would wish her. The calamities more particularly pointed at, are said to be the fall of a wooden bridge over the Arno, in May, 1304, where a large multitude were assembled to witness a representation of hell nnd the infernal torments, in consequence of which accident many lives were lost; and a conflagration that in the following month destroyed more than seventeen hundred houses, many ofthem sumptuous buildings. See G. Villani, Hist. l. viii. c. 70 and 71.

v. 22. More than I am wont.] “When I reflect on the punishment allotted to those who do not give sincere and upright advice to others I am more anxious than ever not to abuse to so bad a purpose those talents, whatever they may be, which Nature, or rather Providence, has conferred on me.” It is probable that this declaration was the result of real feeling Textd have given great weight to

any opinion or party he had espoused, and to whom indigence and exile might have offerred strong temptations to deviate from that line of conduct which a strict sense of duty prescribed.

v. 35. as he, whose wrongs.] Kings, b. ii. c. ii.

v. 54. ascending from that funeral pile.] The flame is said to have divided on the funeral pile which consumed tile bodies of Eteocles and Polynices, as if conscious of the enmity that actuated them while living.

Ecce iterum fratris, &c.

Statius, Theb. l. xii.

Ostendens confectas flamma, &c.

Lucan, Pharsal. l. 1. 145.

v. 60. The ambush of the horse.] “The ambush of the wooden horse, that caused Aeneas to quit the city of Troy and seek his fortune in Italy, where his descendants founded the Roman empire.”

v. 91. Caieta.] Virgil, Aeneid. l. vii. 1.

v. 93. Nor fondness for my son] Imitated hp Tasso, G. L. c.

viii.

Ne timor di fatica o di periglio, Ne vaghezza del regno, ne pietade Del vecchio genitor, si degno affetto Intiepedir nel generoso petto.

This imagined voyage of Ulysses into the Atlantic is alluded to by Pulci.

E sopratutto commendava Ulisse, Che per veder nell’ altro mondo gisse.

Morg. Magg. c. xxv

And by Tasso, G. L. c. xv. 25.

v. 106. The strait pass.] The straits of Gibraltar.

v. 122. Made our oars wings.l So Chiabrera, Cant. Eroiche. xiii Faro de’remi un volo.

And Tasso Ibid. 26.

v. 128. A mountain dim.] The mountain of Purgatorg CANTO XXVII.

v. 6. The Sicilian Bull.] The engine of torture invented by Perillus, for the tyrant Phalaris.

v. 26. Of the mountains there.] Montefeltro.

v. 38. Polenta’s eagle.] Guido Novello da Polenta, who bore an eagle for his coat of arms. The name of Polenta was derived from a castle so called in the neighbourhood of Brittonoro. Cervia is a small maritime city, about fifteen miles to the south of Ravenna. Guido was the son of Ostasio da Polenta, and made himself master of Ravenna, in 1265. In 1322 he was deprived of his sovereignty, and died at Bologna in the year following. This last and most munificent patron of Dante is himself enumerated, by the historian of Italian literature, among the poets of his time. Tiraboschi, Storia della Lett. Ital. t. v. 1. iii. c. ii.

13. The passnge in the text might have removed the uncertainty wwhich Tiraboschi expressed, respecting the duration of Guido’s absence from Ravenna, when he was driven from that city in 1295, by the arms of Pietro, archbishop of Monreale. It must evidently have been very short, since his government is here represented (in 1300) as not having suffered any material disturbance for many years.

v. 41. The land.l The