Page:Dante and His Circle, with the Italian Poets Preceding Him.djvu/447

Rh "la Donna mia," which comes to the same thing as "la Madonna," the Virgin Mary. That the Image did really represent the Virgin Mary is apparent from the reply which Guido Orlandi returned to this sonnet.

"Aguglino would be eaglet," etc.Here again my brother is at fault. Aguglino does indeed mean eaglet: it is the name of a coin stamped (I presume) with the imperial eagle. There can be no real doubt that Aguglino is the correct reading; and that the whole of my brother's surmise about "Avolino" is gratuitous. I pointed this out to him when the book was in course of reprinting. He then admitted the fact; but (with perhaps pardonable weakness for what he had many years before thought out with ingenuity, and argued with plausibility) he ultimately decided not to interfere with the text as printed.