him with the allusion to the Santo Volto.

48. The Santo Volto, or Holy Face, is a crucifix still preserved in the Cathedral of Lucca, and held in great veneration by the people. The tra

dition is that it is the work of Nicodemus, who sculptured it from mem

ory.

See also Sacchetti, Nov. 73, in which a preacher mocks at the Santo Volto in the church of Santa Croce at Flor

ence.

49. The Serchio flows near Lucca. Shelley, in a poem called The Boat, on the Serchio, describes it as a "torrent fierce,"

"Which fervid from its mountain source,
Shallow, smooth, and strong, doth come;
Swift as fire, tempestuously

It sweeps into the affrighted sea.
In morning's smile its eddies coil,
Its billows sparkle, toss, and boil,
Torturing all its quiet light
Into columns fierce and bright."

63. Canto IX. 22: —

"True is it once before I here below

Was conjured by that pitiless Erictho, Who summoned back the shades unto their bodies."

95. A fortified town on the Arno, in the Pisan territory. It was besieged by the troops of Florence and Lucca in 1289, and capitulated. As the garrison marched out under safe-guard, they were terrified by the shouts of the crowd, crying: "Hang them! hang

them!" In this crowd was Dante, "a youth of twenty-five," says Benvenuto da Imola.

110. Along the circular dike that separates one Bolgia from another.

III. This is a falsehood, as all the bridges over the next Bolgia are broken. See Canto XXIII. 140.

112. At the close of the preceding Canto the time is indicated as being an hour after sunrise. Five hours later would be noon, or the scriptural sixth hour, the hour of the Crucifixion. Dante understands St. Luke to say that Christ died at this hour. Convito, IV. 23: "Luke says that it was about the sixth hour when he died; that is, the culmination of the day." Add to the one thousand and two hundred sixtysix years," the thirty-four of Christ's life on earth, and it gives the year 1300, the date of the Infernal Pilgrimage.

114. Broken by the earthquake at the time of the Crucifixion, as the rock leading to the Circle of the Violent, Canto XII. 45:

"And at that moment this primeval rock Both here and elsewhere made such over

throw."

As in the next Bolgia Hypocrites are punished, Dante couples them with the Violent, by making the shock of the earthquake more felt near them than elsewhere.

125. The next crag or bridge, traversing the dikes and ditches. 137. See Canto XVII. 75.

5. Aretino, Vita di Dante, says, that Dante in his youth was present at the "great and memorable battle, which befell at Campaldino, fighting valiantly on horseback in the front rank." It was there he saw the vaunt-couriers of the Aretines, who began the battle with such a vigorous charge, that they routed the Florentine cavalry, and drove them back upon the infantry.

7. Napier, Florentine Hist., I. 214217, gives this description of the Carroccio and the Martinella of the Florentines:

"In order to give more dignity to the national army and form a rallying point for the troops, there had been established a great car, called the Carroccio, drawn by two beautiful oxen, which, carrying the Florentine standard, generally accompanied them into the field. This car was painted vermilion, the bullocks were covered with scarlet cloth, and the driver, a man or some consequence, was dressed in crimson, was exempt from taxation, and served without pay; these oxen were maintained at the public charge in a public hospital, and the white and red. banner of the city was spread above the car between two lofty spars. Those taken at the battle of Monteaperto are still exhibited in Siena Cathedral as trophies of that fatal day.

"Macchiavelli erroneously places the

a

entines at this epoch, but it was long before in use, and probably was copied from the Milanese, as soon as Florence became strong and independent enough to equip a national army. Eribert, Archbishop of Milan, seems to have been its author, for in the war between Conrad I. and that city, besides other arrangements for military organization, he is said to have finished by the invention of the Carroccio: it was a pious and not impolitic imitation of the ark as it was carried before the Israelites. This vehicle is described, and also represented in ancient paintings, as four-wheeled oblong car, drawn by two, four, or six bullocks: the car was always red, and the bullocks, even to their hoofs, covered as above described, but with red or white according to the faction; the ensign staff was red, lofty, and tapering, and surmounted by a cross or golden ball on this, between two white fringed veils, hung the national standard, and half-way down the mast, a crucifix. A platform ran out in front of the car, spacious enough for a few chosen men to defend it, while behind, on a corresponding space, the musicians with their military instruments gave spirit to the combat: mass was said on the Carroccio ere it quitted the city, the surgeons were stationed near it, and not unfrequently a chaplain also attended it to the field. The loss of the Carroccio was a great disgrace, and

betokened utter discomfiture; it was given to the most distinguished knight, who had a public salary and wore conspicuous armor and a golden belt: the best troops were stationed round it, and there was frequently the hottest of the fight. . . . .

"Besides the Carroccio, the Florentine army was accompanied by a great bell, called Martinella, or Campana degli Asini, which, for thirty days before hostilities began, tolled continually day and night from the arch of Porta Santa Maria, as a public declaration of war, and, as the ancient chronicle hath it, for greatness of mind, that the enemy might have full time to prepare himself.' At the same time also, the Carroccio was drawn from its place in the offices of San Giovanni by the most distinguished knights and noble vassals of the republic, and conducted in state to the Mercato Nuovo, where it was placed upon the circular stone still existing, and remained there until the army took the field. Then also the Martinella was removed from its station to a wooden tower placed on another car, and with the Carroccio served to guide the troops by night and day. And with these two pomps, of the Carroccio and Campana,' says Malespini, the pride of the old citizens, our ancestors, was ruled.'”

15. Equivalent to the proverb, "Do in Rome as the Romans do."

48. Giampolo, or Ciampolo, say all the commentators; but nothing more is known of him than his name, and what he tells us here of his history.

52. It is not very clear which King Thibault is here meant, but it is probably King Thibault IV., the crusader and poet, born 1201, died 1253. His poems have been published by Lévêque de la Ravallière, under the title of Les Poésies du Roi de Navarre; and in one of his songs (Chanson 53) he makes a clerk address him as the Bons Rois Thiebaut. Dante cites him two or three times in his Volg. Eloq., and may have taken this expression from his song, as he does afterwards, Canto XXVIII. 135, lo Re joves, the Re Giovane, or Young King, from the songs of Bertrand de Born.

65. A Latian, that is to say, an Italian.

82. This Frate Gomita was a Sardinian in the employ of Nino de' Visconti, judge in the jurisdiction of Gallura, the "gentle Judge Nino" of Purg. VIII. 53. The frauds and peculations of the Friar brought him finally to the gallows. Gallura is the northeastern jurisdiction of the island.

88. Don Michael Zanche was Seneschal of King Enzo of Sardinia, a natural son of the Emperor Frederick II. Dante gives him the title of Don, still used in Sardinia for Signore. After the death of Enzo in prison at Bologna, in 1271, Don Michael won by fraud and flattery his widow Adelasia, and became himself Lord of Logodoro, the northwestern jurisdiction, adjoining that of Gallura.

The gossip between the Friar and the Seneschal, which is here described by Ciampolo, recalls the Vision of the

Sardinian poet Araolla, a dialogue between himself and Gavino Sambigucci, written in the soft dialect of Logodoro, a mixture of Italian, Spanish, and Latin, and beginning:

"Dulche, amara memoria de giornadas Fuggitivas cun doppia pena mia, Qui quanto pìus l'istringo sunt passadas.” See Valery, Voyages en Corse et en Sardaigne, II. 410.

1. In this Sixth Bolgia the Hypocrites are punished.

"A painted people there below we found,

Who went about with footsteps very slow, Weeping and in their looks subdued and weary."

Chaucer, Knightes Tale, 2780:

"In his colde grave

Alone, withouten any compagnie." And Gower, Conf. Amant.:

"To muse in his philosophie

Sole withouten compaignie."

4. The Fables of Esop, by Sir Roger L'Estrange, IV.: "There fell out a bloody quarrel once betwixt the Frogs and the Mice, about the sovereignty of the Fenns; and whilst two of their champions were disputing it at swords. point, down comes a kite powdering upon them in the interim, and gobbles up both together, to part the fray."

7. Both words signifying "now"; mo, from the Latin modo; and issa, from the Latin ipsa; meaning ipsa hora. "The Tuscans say mo," remarks Ben"the Lombards issa."

venuto,

37. "When he is in a fright and hurry, and has a very steep place to go down, Virgil has to carry him altogether," says Mr. Ruskin. See Canto XII., Note 2.

63. Benvenuto speaks of the cloaks of the German monks as 66 ill-fitting and shapeless."

66. The leaden cloaks which Frederick put upon malefactors were straw in comparison. The Emperor Frederick II. is said to have punished traitors by wrapping them in lead, and throwing them into a heated caldron. I can find no historic authority for this. It rests only on tradition; and on the same authority the same punishment is said to have been inflicted in Scotland, and is thus described in the ballad of "Lord Soulis," Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, IV. 256 :

--

leading, he would have you put to death in a cloak of lead."

67. Comedy of Errors, IV. 2:

"A devil in an everlasting garment hath him." 91. Bologna was renowned for its University; and the speaker, who was a Bolognese, is still mindful of his college.

95. Florence, the bellissima e famosissima figlia di Roma, as Dante calls it, Convito, I. 3.

103. An order of knighthood, established by Pope Urban IV. in 1261, under the title of "Knights of Santa Maria." The name Frati Gaudenti, or "Jovial Friars," was a nickname, because they lived in their own homes and were not bound by strict monastic rules. Napier, Flor. Hist. I. 269, says:—

"A short time before this a new order of religious knighthood under the name of Frati Gaudenti began in Italy: it was not bound by vows of celibacy, or any very severe regulations, but took the usual oaths to defend widows and orphans and make peace between man and man: the founder was a Bolognese gentleman, called Loderingo di Liandolo, who enjoyed a good reputation, and along with a brother of the same order, named Catalano di Malavolti, one a Guelph and the other a Ghibelline, was now invited to Florence by Count Guido to execute conjointly the office of Podestà. It was intended by thus dividing the supreme authority between two magistrates of different

politics, that one should correct the other, and justice be equally administered; more especially as, in conjunction with the people, they were allowed to elect a deliberative council of thirtysix citizens, belonging to the principal trades without distinction of party."

Farther on he says that these two Frati Gaudenti "forfeited all public confidence by their peculation and hypocrisy." And Villani, VII. 13:

Although they were of different parties, under cover of a false hypocrisy, they were of accord in seeking rather their own private gains than the common good."

108. A street in Florence, laid waste by the Guelfs.

113. Hamlet, I. 2:—

"Nor windy suspiration of forced breath."

115. Caiaphas, the High Priest, who thought" expediency" the best thing.

121. Annas, father-in-law of Caiaphas.

134. The great outer circle surrounding this division of the Inferno.

142. He may have heard in the lectures of the University an exposition of John viii. 44: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do: he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it."