Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/321

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

67. Comedy of Errors, IV. 2:—

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 , 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 thirty-six 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:—

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

121., 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."