v. 11.  Oblique.] The zodiac.

v. 25.  The part.] The above-mentioned intersection of the equinoctial circle and the zodiac.

v. 26.  Minister.] The sun.

v. 30.  Where.] In which the sun rises every day earlier after the vernal equinox.

v. 45.  Fourth family.] The inhabitants of the sun, the fourth planet.

v. 46.  Of his spirit and of his offspring.] The procession of the third, and the generation of the second person in the Trinity.

v. 70.  Such was the song.] “The song of these spirits was ineffable.

v. 86.  No less constrained.] “The rivers might as easily cease to flow towards the sea, as we could deny thee thy request.”

v. 91.  I then.] “I was of the Dominican order.”

v. 95.  Albert of Cologne.] Albertus Magnus was born at Laugingen, in Thuringia, in 1193, and studied at Paris and at Padua, at the latter of which places he entered into the Dominican order.  He then taught theology in various parts of Germany, and particularly at Cologne.  Thomas Aquinas was his favourite pupil.  In 1260, he reluctantly accepted the bishopric of Ratisbon, and in two years after resigned it, and returned to his cell in Cologne, where the remainder of his life was passed in superintending the school, and in composing his voluminous works on divinity and natural science.  He died in 1280.  The absurd imputation of his having dealt in the magical art is well known; and his biographers take some pains to clear him of it.  Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, by Quetif and Echard, Lut.  Par. 1719. fol. t. 1. p. 162.

v. 96.  Of Aquinum, Thomas.] Thomas Aquinas, of whom Bucer is reported to have said, “Take but Thomas away, and I will overturn the church of Rome,” and whom Hooker terms “the greatest among the school divines,” (Eccl.  Pol. b. 3. 9), was born of noble parents, who anxiously, but vainly, endeavoured to divert him from a life of celibacy and study; and died in 1274, at the age of fourty-seven.  Echard and Quetif, ibid. p. 271.  See also Purgatory Canto xx. v. 67.

v. 101.  Gratian.] “Gratian, a Benedictine monk belonging to the convent of St. Felix and Nabor, at Bologna, and by birth a Tuscan, composed, about the year 1130, for the use of the schools, an abridgment or epitome of canon law, drawn from the letters of the pontiffs, the decrees of councils, and the writings of the ancient doctors.”  Maclaine’s Mosheim, v. iii. cent. 12. part 2. c. i. 6.

v. 101.  To either forum.] “By reconciling,” as Venturi explains it “the civil with the canon law.”