The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri [best thriller novels of all time TXT] 📗

The insignia of knighthood. ↩

The Billi, or Pigli, family; their arms being “a Column Vair in a red field.” The Column Vair was the bar of the shield “variegated with argent and azure.” The vair, in Italian vajo, is a kind of squirrel; and the heraldic mingling of colors was taken from its spotted skin. ↩

The Chiaramontesi, one of whom, a certain Ser Durante, an officer in the customs, falsified the bushel, or stajo, of Florence, by having it made one stave less, so as to defraud in the measure. Dante alludes to this in Purgatorio XII 105. ↩

The Uberti, of whom was Farinata. See Inferno X 32. ↩

The Balls of Gold were the arms of the Lamberti family. Dante mentions them by their arms, says the Ottimo, “as who should say, as the ball is the symbol of the universe, and gold surpasses every other metal, so in goodness and valor these surpassed the other citizens.” Dante puts Mosca de’ Lamberti among the Schismatics in Inferno XXVIII 103, with both hands cut off, and

“The stumps uplifting through the dusky air.”

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The Vidomini, Tosinghi, and Cortigiani, custodians and defenders of the Bishopric of Florence. Their fathers were honorable men, and, like the Lamberti, embellished the city with their good name and deeds; but they, when a bishop died, took possession of the episcopal palace, and, as custodians and defenders, feasted and slept there till his successor was appointed. ↩

The Adimari. One of this family, Boccaccio Adimari, got possession of Dante’s property in Florence when he was banished, and always bitterly opposed his return. ↩

Ubertin Donate, a gentleman of Florence, had married one of the Ravignani, and was offended that her sister should be given in marriage to one of the Adimari, who were of ignoble origin. ↩

The Caponsacchi lived in the Mercato Vecchio, or Old Market. One of the daughters was the wife of Folco Portinari and mother of Beatrice. ↩

The thing incredible is that there should have been so little jealousy among the citizens of Florence as to suffer one of the city gates, Porta Peruzza, to be named after a particular family. ↩

Five Florentine families, according to Benvenuto, bore the arms of the Marquis Hugo of Brandenburg, and received from him the titles and privileges of nobility. These were the Pulci, Nerli, Giandonati, Gangalandi, and Delia Bella.

This Marquis Hugo, whom Dante here calls “the great baron,” was Viceroy of the Emperor Otho III in Tuscany. Villani, Cronica, IV, Ch. 2, relates the following story of him:⁠—

“It came to pass, as it pleased God, that, while hunting in the neighborhood of Bonsollazzo, he was lost in the forest, and came, as it seemed to him, to a smithy. Finding there men swarthy and hideous, who, instead of iron, seemed to be tormenting human beings with fire and hammers, he asked the meaning of it. He was told that these were lost souls, and that to a like punishment was condemned the soul of the Marquis Hugo, on account of his worldly life, unless he repented. In great terror he commended himself to the Virgin Mary; and, when the vision vanished, remained so contrite in spirit, that, having returned to Florence, he had all his patrimony in Germany sold, and ordered seven abbeys to be built; the first of which was the Badia of Florence, in honor of Santa Maria; the second, that of Bonsollazzo, where he saw the vision.”

The Marquis Hugo died on St. Thomas’s day, December 31, 1006, and was buried in the Badia of Florence, where every year on that day the monks, in grateful memory of him, kept the anniversary of his death with great solemnity. ↩

Giano della Bella, who disguised the arms of Hugo, quartered in his own, with a fringe of gold. A nobleman by birth and education, he was by conviction a friend of the people, and espoused their cause against the nobles. By reforming the abuses of both parties, he gained the ill-will of both; and in 1294, after some popular tumult which he in vain strove to quell, went into voluntary exile, and died in France.

Sismondi, Ital. Rep., p. 113 (Lardner’s Cyclopaedia), gives the following succinct account of the abuses which Giano strove to reform, and of his summary manner of doing it:⁠—

“The arrogance of the nobles, their quarrels, and the disturbance of the public peace by their frequent battles in the streets, had, in 1292, irritated the whole population against them. Giano della Bella, himself a noble, but sympathizing in the passions and resentment of the people, proposed to bring them to order by summary justice, and to confide the execution of it to the gonfalonier whom he caused to be elected. The Guelfs had been so long at the head of the republic, that their noble families, whose wealth had immensely increased, placed themselves above all law. Giano determined that their nobility itself should be a title of exclusion, and a commencement of punishment; a rigorous edict, bearing the title of ‘ordinance of justice,’ first designated thirty-seven Guelf families of Florence, whom it declared noble and great, and on this account excluded forever from the signoria; refusing them at the same time the privilege of renouncing their nobility, in order to place themselves on a footing with the other citizens. When these families troubled the public peace by battle or assassination, a summary information, or even common report, was sufficient to induce the gonfalonier to attack them at the head of the militia, raze their houses to the ground, and deliver their persons to the Podestà, to be punished according to their crimes.