issue.[12] That one who lowest among them sits on the ground, looking upward, is William the marquis,[13] for whom Alessandria and her war make Montferrat and the Canavese mourn.” [1] The beginning of a Church hymn to the Virgin, sung after vespers, of which the first verses are:— Salve, Regina, mater misericordiae! Vita, dulcedo et spes nostra, salve! Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevae; Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes In hac lacrymarum valle. [2] The neglect of Italy by the Emperor Rudolph (see the preceding Canto) was not to be repaired by the vain efforts of Henry VII. [3] Ottocar, King of Bohemia and Duke of Austria, had been slain in battle against Rudolph, on the Marchfeld by the Donau, in 1278; “whereby Austria fell to Rudolph.” See Carlyle’s Frederick the Great, book ii. ch. 7. [4] Dante repeats his harsh judgment of Wenceslaus in the nineteenth Canto of Paradise. His first wife was the daughter of Rudolph of Hapsburg. He died in 1305. [5] This is Philip the Bold of France, 1270-1285. Having invaded Catalonia, in a war with Peter the Third of Aragon, he was driven back, and died on the retreat at Perpignan. [6] Henry of Navarre, the brother of Thibault, the poet-king (Hell, Canto XXII.). His daughter Joan married Philip the Fair, “the harm of France,” the son of Philip the Bold. [7] Peter of Aragon (died 1285), the husband of Constance, daughter of Manfred (see Canto III.); the youth who is seated behind him is his son Alphonso, who died in 1291. [8] Charles of Anjou. [9] The kingdoms of Aragon and Sicily; both James and Frederick were living when Dante thus wrote of them. The “better heritage” was the virtue of their father. [10] Apulia and Provence were grieving under the rule of Charles II., the degenerate son of Charles of Anjou, who died in 1309. [11] The meaning is doubtful; perhaps it is, that the children of Charles of Anjou and of Peter of Aragon are as inferior to their fathers, as Charles himself, the husband first of Beatrice of Provence and then of Margaret of Nevers, was inferior to Peter, the husband of Constance. [12] Henry III., father of Edward I. [13] William Spadalunga was Marquis of Montferrat and Canavese, the Piedmontese highlands and plain north of the Po. He was Imperial vicar, and the bead of the Ghibellines in this region. In a war with the Guelphs, who had risen in revolt in 1290, he was taken captive at Alessandria, and for two years, till his death, was kept in an iron cage. Dante refers to him in the Convito, iv. 11, as “the good marquis of Montferrat.” CANTO VIII. Valley of the Princes.—Two Guardian Angels.—Kino Visconti.—The Serpent.—Corrado Malaspina.