Dante was a Ghibelline, and must therefore be supposed to have known well the tradition of commanding supernatural power woven by his party about the name of Scot. There is, however, a strong element of contempt and reproof in his lines, and this must be explained by a point of view which was peculiar to himself. The _Commedia_, and especially the _Inferno_, where this passage occurs, is nothing if not a retrospect of the past. In it Dante calls up the mighty dead and subjects them to review; his principle of judgment being largely, but by no means solely, drawn from political considerations. Even more decidedly was it moral, and thus, while in not a few instances he displays the working of party-spirit, in others he permits himself to part altogether with the current Ghibelline views. His reference to Michael Scot, then, is undoubtedly a case of the latter kind. As a seer whose attention was fixed on the past he was naturally impatient of those who pretended to unfold the future. Scot, as the author of prophetical verses, seemed to Dante a fair object for censure, as one who had degraded the sacred art of the bard to serve the purpose of a charlatan. He placed him with Amphiareus, with Teiresias and the other diviners, who, because they sought to pry into the future, appeared to the poet with their heads turned backward in punishment of their presumption. An additional proof that this was in fact the reason for Dante’s harsh dealing with Scot may be seen in the _Dittamondo_ of Fazio degli Uberti. This poem, composed towards the end of the fourteenth century, was modelled on the _Divine Comedy_, and expressly formed to expound it. Here are the lines which correspond in the _Dittamondo_ to those of Dante relating to Michael Scot: ‘In questo tempo che m’odi contare Michele Scotto fù, che per sua arte Sapeva Simon Mago contraffare, E se tu leggerai nelle sue carte Le profezie ch’ei fece, troverai Vere venire dove sono sparte.’ Here the reader will observe that the prophetical writings of Scot are distinctly mentioned, and we are not left, as by Dante, to infer, merely from the company in which we find him, the view that was taken by the poet of his character and fame.