v. 69.  Another Charles.] Charles of Valois, brother of Philip iv, was sent by Pope Boniface viii to settle the disturbed state of Florence.  In consequence of the measures he adopted for that purpose, our poet and his friend, were condemned to exile and death.

v. 71. -with that lance Which the arch-traitor tilted with.]

con la lancia Con la qual giostro Guida.

If I remember right, in one of the old romances, Judas is represented tilting with our Saviour.

v. 78.  The other.] Charles, King of Naples, the eldest son of Charles of Anjou, having, contrary to the directions of his father, engaged with Ruggier de Lauria, the admiral of Peter of Arragon, was made prisoner and carried into Sicily, June, 1284.  He afterwards, in consideration of a large sum of money, married his daughter to Azzo vi11, Marquis of Ferrara.

v. 85.  The flower-de-luce.] Boniface viii was seized at Alagna in Campagna, by order of Philip iv., in the year 1303, and soon after died of grief.  G. Villani, 1. viii. c. 63.

v. 94.  Into the temple.] It is uncertain whether our Poet alludes still to the event mentioned in the preceding Note, or to the destruction of the order of the Templars in 1310, but the latter appears more probable.

v. 103.  Pygmalion.] Virg.  Aen. 1. i. 348.

v. 107.  Achan.] Joshua, c. vii.

v. 111.  Heliodorus.] 2 Maccabees, c. iii. 25.  “For there appeared unto them a horse, with a terrible rider upon him, and adorned with a very fair covering, and he ran fiercely and smote at Heliodorus with his forefeet.”

v. 112.  Thracia’s king.] Polymnestor, the murderer of Polydorus.  Hell, Canto xxx, 19.

v. 114.  Crassus.] Marcus Crassus, who fell miserably in the Parthian war.  See Appian, Parthica.

CANTO XXI

v. 26.  She.] Lachesis, one of the three fates.

v. 43. —­that, which heaven in itself Doth of itself receive.] Venturi, I think rightly interprets this to be light.

v. 49.  Thaumantian.] Figlia di Taumante [Greek here]

Compare Plato, Theaet. v. ii. p. 76.  Bip. edit., Virg; Aen. ix. 5, and Spenser, Faery Queen, b. v. c. 3. st. 25.

v. 85.  The name.] The name of Poet.

v. 89.  From Tolosa.] Dante, as many others have done, confounds Statius the poet, who was a Neapolitan, with a rhetorician of the same name, who was of Tolosa, or Thoulouse.  Thus Chaucer, Temple of Fame, b. iii.  The Tholason, that height Stace.

v. 94.  Fell.] Statius lived to write only a small part of the Achilleid.

CANTO XXII

v. 5.  Blessed.] Matt. v. 6.

v. 14.  Aquinum’s bard.] Juvenal had celebrated his contemporary Statius, Sat. vii. 82; though some critics imagine that there is a secret derision couched under his praise.