Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/338

318 from the strictest orthodoxy. Luther and Calvin would equally have repudiated him. He was neither a Presbyterian nor an Episcopalian, but an uncompromising, stanch Papist. His was, most eminently, the heresy of those whom we have designated as 'literal Christians.' He would have the Gospel strictly—perhaps blindly—adhered to. Neither was that, in the abstract, an unpardonable offence in the eyes of the Romanism of those times—witness St. Francis and his early flock—provided he had limited himself to make Gospel-law binding upon himself and his followers only. But Dolcino must needs enforce it upon the whole Christian community, enforce it especially on those who set up as teachers of the Gospel, on those who laid claim to Apostolical succession. That was the error that damned him."

Of Margaret he still farther says, referring to some old manuscript as authority:—

"She was known by the emphatic appellation of Margaret the Beautiful. It is added, that she was an orphan, heiress of noble parents, and had been placed for her education in a monastery of St. Catherine in Trent; that there Dolcino—who had also been a monk, or at least a novice, in a convent of the Order of the Humiliati, in the same town, and had been expelled in consequence either of his heretic tenets, or of immoral conduct—succeeded nevertheless in becoming domesticated in the nunnery of St. Catherine, as a steward or agent to the nuns, and there accomplished the fascination and abduction of the wealthy heiress."

59.Val Sesia, among whose mountains Fra Dolcino was taken prisoner, is in the diocese of Novara.

73.A Bolognese, who stirred up dissensions among the citizens.

74.The plain of Lombardy sloping down two hundred miles and more, from Vercelli in Piedmont to Marcabo, a village near Ravenna.

76.Guido del Cassero and Angiolello da Cagnano, two honorable citizens of Fano, going to Rimini by invitation of Malatestino, were by his order thrown into the sea and drowned, as here prophesied or narrated, near the village of Cattolica on the Adriatic.

85.Malatestino had lost one eye.

86.Rimini.

89.Focara is a headland near Cattolica, famous for dangerous winds, to be preserved from which mariners offered up vows and prayers. These men will not need to do it; they will not reach that cape.

102.Curio, the banished Tribune, who, fleeing to Cæsar's camp on the Rubicon, urged him to advance upon Rome. Lucan, Pharsalia, I., Rowe's Tr.:—

To Cæsar's camp the busy Curio fled;

Curio, a speaker turbulent and bold,

Of venal eloquence, that served for gold,

And principles that might be bought and sold.

To Cæsar thus, while thousand cares infest,

Revolving round the warrior's anxious breast,

His speech the ready orator addressed.