v. 58.  In Aegina.] He alludes to the fable of the ants changed into Myrmidons.  Ovid, Met. 1. vii.

v. 104.  Arezzo was my dwelling.] Grifolino of Arezzo, who promised Albero, son of the Bishop of Sienna, that he would teach him the art of flying; and because be did not keep his promise, Albero prevailed on his father to have him burnt for a necromancer.

v. 117. 
               Was ever race
        Light as Sienna’s?]
The same imputation is again cast on the Siennese, Purg.  Canto
xiii. 141.

v. 121.  Stricca.] This is said ironically.  Stricca, Niccolo Salimbeni, Caccia of Asciano, and Abbagliato, or Meo de Folcacchieri, belonged to a company of prodigal and luxurious young men in Sienna, called the “brigata godereccia.”  Niccolo was the inventor of a new manner of using cloves in cookery, not very well understood by the commentators, and which was termed the “costuma ricca.”

v. 125.  In that garden.] Sienna.

v. 134.  Cappocchio’s ghost.] Capocchio of Sienna, who is said to have been a fellow-student of Dante’s in natural philosophy.

Canto xxx.

v. 4.  Athamas.] From Ovid, Metam. 1. iv. 
        Protinos Aelides, &c.

v. 16.  Hecuba.  See Euripedes, Hecuba; and Ovid, Metnm. l. xiii.

v. 33.  Schicchi.] Gianni Schicci, who was of the family of Cavalcanti, possessed such a faculty of moulding his features to the resemblance of others, that he was employed by Simon Donati to personate Buoso Donati, then recently deceased, and to make a will, leaving Simon his heir; for which service he was renumerated with a mare of extraordinary value, here called “the lady of the herd.”

v. 39.  Myrrha.] See Ovid, Metam. l. x.

v. 60.  Adamo’s woe.] Adamo of Breschia, at the instigation of Cuido Alessandro, and their brother Aghinulfo, lords of Romena, coonterfeited the coin of Florence; for which crime he was burnt.  Landino says, that in his time the peasants still pointed out a pile of stones near Romena as the place of his execution.

v. 64.  Casentino.] Romena is a part of Casentino.

v. 77.  Branda’s limpid spring.] A fountain in Sienna.

v. 88.  The florens with three carats of alloy.] The floren was a coin that ought to have had tmenty-four carats of pure gold.  Villani relates, that it was first used at Florence in 1253, an aera of great prosperity in the annals of the republic; before which time their most valuable coinage was of silver.  Hist. l. vi. c. 54.

v. 98.  The false accuser.] Potiphar’s wife.

Canto XXXI.

v. 1.  The very tongue.]
        Vulnus in Herculeo quae quondam fecerat hoste
        Vulneris auxilium Pellas hasta fuit. 
               Ovid, Rem.  Amor. 47. 
The same allusion was made by Bernard de Ventadour, a Provencal poet in the middle of the twelfth century:  and Millot observes, that it was a singular instance of erudition in a Troubadour.  But it is not impossible, as Warton remarks, (Hist. of Engl.  Poetry, vol. ii. sec. x. p 215.) but that he might have been indebted for it to some of the early romances.