Trust to my hand the heliotrope, by which I may at will from others’ eyes conceal me Compare Ariosto, II Negromante, a. 3. s. 3. Pulci, Morg. Magg. c xxv. and Fortiguerra, Ricciardetto, c. x. st. 17. Gower in his Confessio Amantis, lib. vii, enumerates it among the jewels in the diadem of the sun. Jaspis and helitropius. v. 104. The Arabian phoenix.] This is translated from Ovid, Metam. l. xv. Una est quae reparat, seque ipsa reseminat ales, &c. See also Petrarch, Canzone: “Qual piu,” &c. v. 120. Vanni Fucci.] He is said to have been an illegitimate offspring of the family of Lazari in Pistoia, and, having robbed the sacristy of the church of St. James in that city, to have charged Vanni della Nona with the sacrilege, in consequence of which accusation the latter suffered death. v. 142. Pistoia.] “In May 1301, the Bianchi party, of Pistoia, with the assistance and favor of the Bianchi who ruled Florence, drove out the Neri party from the former place, destroying their houses, Palaces and farms.” Giov. Villani, Hist. l. viii. e xliv. v. 144. From Valdimagra.] The commentators explain this prophetical threat to allude to the victory obtained by the Marquis Marcello Malaspina of Valdimagra (a tract of country now called the Lunigiana) who put himself at the head of the Neri and defeated their opponents the Bianchi, in the Campo Piceno near Pistoia, soon after the occurrence related in the preceding note. Of this engagement I find no mention in Villani. Currado Malaspina is introduced in the eighth Canto of Purgatory; where it appears that, although on the present occaision they espoused contrary sides, some important favours were nevertheless conferred by that family on our poet at a subsequent perid of his exile in 1307. Canto XXV v.1. The sinner ] So Trissino Poi facea con le man le fiche al cielo Dicendo: Togli, Iddio; che puoi piu farmi? L’ital. Lib. c. xii v. 12. Thy seed] Thy ancestry. v. 15. Not him] Capanaeus. Canto XIV. v. 18. On Marenna’s marsh.] An extensive tract near the sea-shore in Tuscany. v. 24. Cacus.] Virgil, Aen. l. viii. 193. v. 31. A hundred blows.] Less than ten blows, out of the hundred Hercules gave him, deprived him of feeling. v. 39. Cianfa] He is said to have been of the family of Donati at Florence. v. 57. Thus up the shrinking paper.] —All my bowels crumble up to dust. I am a scribbled form, drawn up with a pen Upon a parchment; and against this fire Do I shrink up. Shakespeare, K. John, a. v. s. 7. v. 61. Agnello.] Agnello Brunelleschi v. 77. In that part.] The navel. v. 81. As if by sleep or fev’rous fit assail’d.] O Rome! thy head Is drown’d in sleep, and all thy body fev’ry. Ben Jonson’s Catiline. v. 85. Lucan.] Phars. l. ix. 766 and 793. v. 87. Ovid.] Metam. l. iv. and v. v. 121. His sharpen’d visage.] Compare Milton, P. L. b. x. 511 &c. v. 131. Buoso.] He is said to have been of the Donati family.