from your own worth, you can derive no real splendour from the merits of others: so that, in my opinion, nobility is in no other respect good, than as it imposes an obligation upon its possessors not to degenerate from the merit of their ancestors." 10. The use of You for Thou, the plural for the singular, is said to have been introduced in the time of Julius Cæsar. Lucan, V., Rowe's Tr. :— "Then was the time when sycophants began To heap all titles on one lordly man." Dante uses it by way of compliment to his ancestor; though he says the descendants of the Romans were not so persevering in its use as other Italians. 14. Beatrice smiled to give notice to Dante that she observed his flattering style of address; as the Lady of Malehault coughed when she saw Launcelot kiss Queen Guinevere, as related in the old romance of Launcelot of the Lake. 20. Rejoiced within itself that it can endure so much joy. 25. The city of Florence, which, in Canto XXV. 5, Dante calls "the fair sheepfold, where a lamb I slumbered." It will be remembered that St. John the Baptist is the patron saint of Flor ence. 33. Not in Italian, but in Latin, which was the language of cultivated people in Cacciaguida's time. being had to the leap-years) 1090 years and not quite four months. Cacciaguidɔ, therefore, at the time of the Second Crusade, was in his fifty-seventh year." Pietro di Dante (the poet's son and commentator, and who, as Biagioli, with rather gratuitous harshness, says, was "smaller compared to his father than a point is to the universe") assumed two years as a revolution of Mars; bat as this made Cacciaguida born in 1160, twelve years after his death, he suggested the reading of "three," instead of 'thirty," in the text, which reading was adopted by the Cruscan Academy, and makes the year of Cacciaguida's birth 1106. But that Dante computed the revolu tion of Mars at less than two years is evident from a passage in the Convito, II. 15, referred to by Philalethes, where he speaks of half a revolution of this planet as un anno quasi, almost a year. The common reading of "thirty" is undoubtedly then the true one. In Astrology, the Lion is the House of the Sun; but Mars, as well as the Sun and Jupiter, is a Lord of the Lion; and hence Dante says "its Lion.” 41. The house in which Cacciaguida was born stood in the Mercato Vecchio, or Old Market, at the beginning of the last ward or sesto of Florence toward the east, called the Porta San Pietro. dividing Santa Maria into the Borgo and San Pietro Scheraggio, and adding the Oltrarno (beyond the Arno) on the southern bank. The city of Florence was originally divided into Quarters or Gates, which 34. From the Incarnation of Christ were, San Pancrazio on the east, San down to his own birth, the planet Mars Pietro on the west, the Duomo on the had returned to the sign of the Lion five north, and Santa Maria on the south. hundred and eighty times, or made this Afterwards, when the new walls were number of revolutions in its orbit. Bru- built and the city enlarged, these Quarnetto Latini, Dante's schoolmaster, Tre-ters were changed to Sesti, or Sixths, by sor, I. Ch. cxi., says, that Mars " 'goes through all the signs in ii. years and i. month and xxx. days." This would make Cacciaguida born long after the crusade in which he died. But Dante, 42. The annual races of Florence on who had perhaps seen the astronomical the 24th of June, the festival of St. John tables of King Alfonso of Castile, knew the Baptist. The prize was the Pallio, more of the matter than his schoolmaster, or mantle of "crimson silk velvet," as and was aware that the period of a revo- Villani says; and the race was run from lution of Mars is less than two years. San Pancrazio, the western ward of the Witte, who cites these tables in his city, through the Mercato Vecchio, to notes to this canto, says they give "686 the eastern ward of San Piero. Accorddays 22 hours and 24 minutes"; and ing to Benvenuto, the Florentine races continues: "Five hundred and eighty were horse-races; but the Pallio of Vesuch revolutions give then (due regard|rona, where the prize was the "Green Mantle,” was manifestiy a foot-race. See Inf. XV. 122. 47. Between the Ponte Vecchio, where once stood the statue of Mars, and the church of St. John the Baptist. 50. Campi is a village between Prato and Florence, in "The valley whence Bisenzio descends." Certaldo is in the Val d'Elsa, and is chiefly celebrated as being the birthplace of Boccaccio,-"true Bocca d'Oro, or Mouth of Gold," says Benvenuto, with enthusiasm, "my venerated master, and a most diligent and familiar student of Dante, and who wrote a certain book that greatly helps us to understand him." Figghine, or Figline, is a town in the Val d'Arno, some twelve miles distant from Florence; and hateful to Dante as the birthplace of the "ribald lawyer, Ser Dego," as Campi was of another ribald lawyer, Ser Fozio; and Certaldo of a certain Giacomo, who thrust the Podestà of Florence from his seat, and undertook to govern the city. These men, mingling with the old Florentines, corrupted the simple manners of the town. 53. Galluzzo lies to the south of Florence on the road to Siena, and Trespiano about the same distance to the north, on the road to Bologna. "The Arte del Cambio, or money-trade, in which Florence shone pre-eminent, soon made her bankers known and almost necessary to all Europe. But amongst all foreign nations they were justly considered, according to the almission of their own countrymen, as hard, griping, and exacting; they were called Lombard dogs; hated and insulte-l by nations less acquainted with trade ani certainly less civilized than themselves, when they may only have demanded a fair interest for money lent at a great risk to lawless men in a foreign country. .. All counting-houses of Florentine bankers were confined to the old and new market-places, where alone they were allowed to transact business: before the door was placed a bench, and a table covered with carpet, on which stood their money-bags and account-book for the daily transactions of trade." 62. Simifonte, a village near Certaldo. It was captured by the Florentines, and made part of their territory, in 1202. 64. In the valley of the Ombrone, east of Pistoia, are still to be seen the ruins of Montemurlo, once owned by the Counts Guidi, and by them sold to the Florentines in 1203, because they could not defend it against the Pistoians. 65. The Pivier d'Acone, or parish of Acone, is in the Val di Sieve, or Valley of the Sieve, one of the affluents of the Arno. Here the powerful family of the Cerchi had their castle of Monte di Croce, which was taken and destroyed by the Florentines in 1053, and the Cerchi and others came to live in Flor 56. Aguglione and Signa are also Tuscan towns in the neighbourhood of Florence. According to Covino, Deseriz. Geog. dell' Italia, p. 18, it was a certain Baldo d'Aguglione, who condemned Dante to be burned; and Bonifazio da Signa, according to Buti, "ty-ence, where they became the leaders of tannized over the city, and sold the the Parte Bianca. See Inf. VI. Note favours and offices of the Commune." 58. The clergy. "Popes, cardinals, bishops, and archbishops, who govern the Holy Church," says Buti; and continues: "If the Church had been a mother, instead of a step-mother to the Emperors, and had not excommunicated, and persecuted, and published them as heretics, Italy would have been well governed, and there would have been one of those civil wars, that dismantled and devastated the smaller towns, and drove their inhabitants into Florence, to trade and discount." Napier, Florent. Hist., I. 597, says: 65. They 66. The Buondelmonti were a wealthy and powerful family of Valdigrieve, or Valley of the Grieve, which, like the Sieve, is an affluent of the Arno. too, like the Cerchi, came to Florence, when their lands were taken by the Florentines, and were in a certain sense the cause of Guelph and Ghibelline quarrels in the city. See Inf. X. Note 51. 70. The downfall of a great city is more swift and terrible than that of a smaller one; or, as Venturi interprets, "The size of the body and greater robustness of strength in a city and state are not helpful, but injurious to their tell us how we may be buried in our preservation, unless men live in peace survivors. Grave-stones tell truth scarce and without the blindness of the pas- forty years. Generations pass while sions, and Florence, more poor and some trees stand, and old families last humble, would have flourished longer." not three oaks. . . . Oblivion is not to Perhaps the best commentary of all be hired. The greater part must be is that contained in the two lines of content to be as though they had not Chaucer's Troilus and Cresseide, II. been, to be found in the register of God, 1385,-aptly quoted by Mr. Cary :— not in the rec rd of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story, and the "For swifter course cometh thing that is of recorded names ever since contain not wight, Whan it descendeth, than done thinges light." one living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day; and who knows when was the equinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetic, which scarce stands 72. In this line we have in brief Dante's political faith, which is given in detail in his treatise De Monarchia. See the article "Dante's Creed," among the illustrations of Vol. II. 73. Luni, an old Etruscan city in the Lunigiana; and Urbisaglia, a Roman city in the Marca d'Ancona. 75. Chiusi is in the Sienese territory, and Sinigaglia on the Adriatic, east of Rome. This latter place has somewhat revived since Dante's time. 76. Boccaccio seems to have caught something of the spirit of this canto, when, lamenting the desolation of Florence by the plague in 1348, he says in the Introduction to the Decamerone: "How many vast palaces, how many beautiful houses, how many noble dwellings, aforetime filled with lords and ladies and trains of servants, were now untenanted even by the lowest menial ! How many memorable families, how many ample heritages, how many renowned possessions, were left without an heir! How many valiant men, how many beautiful women, how many gentle youths, breakfasted in the morning with their relatives, companions, and friends, and, when the evening came, supped with their ancestors in the other world!" 78. Lowell, To the Past:- "Our fathers," says Sir Thomas Browne, Urn Burial, V., "find their graves in our short memories, and sadly 86. It would be an unprofitable task to repeat in notes the names of these "Great Florentines Of whom the fame is hidden in the Past," and who flourished in the days of Cac ciaguida and the Emperor Conrad. It will be better to follow Villani, as he points out with a sigh their dwellings in the old town, and laments over their decay. In his Cronica, Book IV., he speaks as follows: "Ch. X. As already mentioned, the first rebuilding of Little Florence was divided by Quarters, that is, by four gates; and that we may the better make known the noble races and houses, which in those times, after Fiesole was destroyed, were great and powerful in Florence, we will enumerate them by the quarters where they lived. "And first those of the Porta del Duomo, which was the first fold and habitation of the new Florence, and the place where all the noble citizens resorted and met together on Sunday, and where all marriages were made, and all reconciliations, and all pomps and solemnities of the Commune. . At the Porta del Duomo lived the descendants of the Giovanni and of the Guineldi, who were the first that rebuilt the city of Florence, and from whom descended many noble families in Mugello and in Valdarno, and many in the city, who now are common people, and almost come to an end. Such were the Barucci, who lived at Santa Maria Maggiore, who are now extinct; and of their race were the Scali and Palermini. In the same quarter were also the Arrigucci, the Sizi, and the sons of Della Tosa; and the Della Tosa were the same race as the Bisdomini, and custodians and defenders of the bishopric; but one of them left his family at the Porta San Piero, and took to wife a lady named Della Tosa, who had the inheritance, whence the name was derived. And there were the Della Pressa, who lived among the Chiavainoli, men of gentle birth. "Ch. XI. In the quarter of Porta San Piero were the Bisdomini, who, as above mentioned, were custodians of the bishopric; and the Alberighi, to whom belonged the church of Santa Maria Alberighi, of the house of the Donati, and now they are naught. The Rovig. ani were very great, and lived at the Porta San Pietro; and then came the houses of the Counts Guidi, and then of the Cerchi, and from them in the female line were born all the Counts Guidi, as before mentioned, of the daughter of good Messer Bellincion Berti; in our day all this race is extinct. The Galligari and Chiarmontesi and Ardinghi, who lived in the Orto San Michele, were very ancient; and so were the Giuochi, who now are popolani, living at Santa Margherita ; the Elisei, who likewise are now popolani, living near the Mercato Vecchio. And in that place lived the Caponsacchi, who were nobles of Fiesole; the Donati, or Calfucci, for they were all one race, but the Calfucci are extinct; and the Della Bella of San Martino, also become popolani; and the Adimari, who descended from the house of Cosi, who now live at Porta Rossa, and who built Santa Maria Nipotecosa; and although they are now the prin cipal family of that ward of Florence, in those days they were not of the oldest. "Ch. XII. At the Porta San Pancrazio, of great rank and power were the Lamberti, descended from the Della Magna; the Ughi were very ancient, and built Santa Maria Ughi, and all the hill of Montughi belonged to them, and now they have died out; the Catellini were very ancient, and now they are forgotten. It is said that the Tieri were illegitimate descendants of theirs. The Pigli were great and noble in those times, and the Soldanieri and Vecchietti. Very ancient were the Dell' Arca, and now they are extinct; and the Migliorelli, who now are naught; and the Trinciavelli da Mosciano were very ancient. "Ch. XIII. In the quarter of Porta Santa Maria, which is now in the ward of San Piero Scheraggio and of Borgo, there were many powerful and ancient families. The greatest were the Uberti, whose ancestors were the Della Magna, and who lived where now stand the Piazza de' Priori and the Palazzo del Popolo; the Fifanti, called Bogolesi, lived at the corner of Porta Santa Maria; the Galli, Cappiardı, Guidi, and Filippi, who now are nothing, were then great and powerful, and lived in the Mercato Nuovo. Likewise the Greci, to whom all the Borgo de' Greci belonged, have now perished and passed away, except some of the race in Bologna; and the Ormanni, who lived where now stands the forementioned Palazzo del Popolo, and are now called Foraboschi. And behind San Piero Scheraggio, where are now the houses of the Petri, lived the Della Pera, or Peruzza, and from them the postern gate there was called Porta Peruzza. Some say that the Peruzzi oi the present day are of that family, but I do not affirm it. The Sacchetti, who lived in the Garbo, were very ancient ; around the Mercato Nuovo the Bostichi were great people, and the Della Sanella, and Giandonati and Infangati; great in Borgo Santi Apostoli were the Gualterotti and Importuni, who now are popelani. The Buondelmonti were noble and ancient citizens in the rural districts nd Montebuoni was their castle, and aany others in Valdigrieve; at first they ived in Oltrarno, and then came to the Borgo. The Pulci, and the Counts of Gangalandi, Ciuffagni, and Nerli of Oltrarno were at one time great and powerful, together with the Giandonati ind Della Bella, named above; and from the Marquis Hugo, who built the Abbey, or Badia, of Florence, received arms and knighthood, for they were very great around him." To the better understanding of this extract from Villani, it must be borne in mind that, at the time when he wrote, the population of Florence was divided into three classes, the Nobles, the Popolani, or middle class, and the Plebeians. 93. Gianni del Soldanier is put among the traitors "with Ganellon and Tebaldello," Inf. XXXII. 121. 95. The Cerchi, who lived near the Porta San Piero, and produced dissension in the city with their White and Black factions;-such a cargo, that it must be thrown overboard to save the ship. See Inf. VI. Note 65. 98. The County Guido, for Count Guido, as in Shakespeare the County Paris and County Palatine, and in the old song in Scott's Quentin Durward : "Ah, County Guy, the hour is nigh, 99. Bellincion Berti. See Canto XV. 112, and Inf. XVI. Note 87. 102. The insignia of knighthood. 103. The Billi, or Pigli, family; their arms being "a Column Vair in a red field." The Column Vair was the bar of the shield "variegated with argent and azure." The vair, in Italian vajo, is a kind of squirrel; and the heraldic mingling of colours was taken from its spotted skin. 105. The Chiaramontesi, one of whom, a certain Ser Durante, an officer in the customs, falsified the bushel, or stajo, of Florence, by having it made one stave less, so as to defraud in the measure. Dante alludes to this in Purg. XII. 105. 109. The Uberti, of whom was Farinata. See Inf. X. 32. 110. The Balls of Gold were the arms of the Lamberti family. Dante mentions them by their arms, says the Offi mo, as who should say, as the ball is the symbol of the universe, and gold surpasses every other metal, so in goodness and valour these surpassed the other citizens." Dante puts Mosca de' Lamberti among the Schismatics in Inf. XXVIII. 103, with both hands cut off, and "The stumps uplifting through the dusky air.' 112. The Vidomini, Tosinghi, and Cortigiani, custodians and defenders of the Bishopric of Florence. Their fathers were honourable men, and, like the Lamberti, embellished the city with their good name and deeds; but they, when a bishop died, took possession of the episcopal palace, and, as custodians and defenders, feasted and slept there till his successor was appointed. 115. The Adimari. One of this family, Boccaccio Adimari, got possession of Dante's property in Florence when he was banished, and always bitterly opposed his return. 119. Ubertin Donato, a gentleman of Florence, had married one of the Ravig. nani, and was offended that her siste should be given in marriage to one of the Adimari, who were of ignoble origin. 121. The Caponsacchi lived in the Mercato Vecchio, or Old Market. One of the daughters was the wife of Folco Portinari and mother of Beatrice. 124. The thing incredible is that there should have been so little jealousy among the citizens of Florence as to suffer one of the city gates, Porta Peruzza, to be named after a particular family. 127. Five Florentine families, according to Benvenuto, bore the arms of the Marquis Hugo of Brandenburg, and received from him the titles and privileges of nobility. These were the Pulci, Nerli, Giandonati, Gangalandi, and Della Bella. This Marquis Hugo, whom Dante here calls "the great baron," was Viceroy of the Emperor Otho III. in Tuscany. Villani, Cronica, IV., Ch. 2, relates the following story of him :-"It came to pass, as it pleased God, that, while hunting in the neighbourhood of Bonsollazzo, he was lost in the forest, and came, as it seemed to him, to a |