CANTO IX
v. 2. O fair Clemenza.] Daughter of Charles Martel, and second wife of Louis X. of France.
v. 2. The treachery.] He alludes to the occupation of the kingdom of Sicily by Robert, in exclusion of his brother s son Carobert, or Charles. Robert, the rightful heir. See G. Villani, 1. viii. c. 112.
v. 7. That saintly light.] Charles Martel.
v. 25. In that part.] Between Rialto and the Venetian territory, and the sources of the rivers Brenta and Piava is situated a castle called Romano, the birth-place of the famous tyrant Ezzolino or Azzolino, the brother of Cunizza, who is now speaking. The tyrant we have seen in “the river of blood.” Hell, Canto XII. v. 110.
v. 32. Cunizza.] The adventures of Cunizza, overcome by the influence of her star, are related by the chronicler Rolandino of Padua, 1. i. c. 3, in Muratori Rer. It. Script. t. viii. p. 173.
She eloped from her first husband, Richard of St. Boniface, in the company of Sordello, (see Purgatory, Canto VI. and VII. ) with whom she is supposed to have cohabited before her marriage: then lived with a soldier of Trevigi, whose wife was living at the same time in the same city, and on his being murdered by her brother the tyrant, was by her brother married to a nobleman of Braganzo, lastly when he also had fallen by the same hand she, after her brother’s death, was again wedded in Verona.
v. 37. This.] Folco of Genoa, a celebrated Provencal poet, commonly termed Folques of Marseilles, of which place he was perhaps bishop. Many errors of Nostradamus, regarding him, which have been followed by Crescimbeni, Quadrio, and Millot, are detected by the diligence of Tiraboschi. Mr. Matthias’s ed. v. 1. P. 18. All that appears certain, is what we are told in this Canto, that he was of Genoa, and by Petrarch in the Triumph of Love, c. iv. that he was better known by the appellation he derived from Marseilles, and at last resumed the religious habit. One of his verses is cited by Dante, De Vulg. Eloq. 1. ii. c. 6.
v. 40. Five times.] The five hundred years are elapsed: and unless the Provencal MSS. should be brought to light the poetical reputation of Folco must rest on the mention made of him by the more fortunate Italians.
v. 43 The crowd.] The people who inhabited the tract of country bounded by the river Tagliamento to the east, and Adice to the west.
v. 45. The hour is near.] Cunizza foretells the defeat of Giacopo da Carrara, Lord of Padua by Can Grande, at Vicenza, on the 18th September 1314. See G. Villani, 1. ix. c. 62. v. 48. One.] She predicts also the fate of Ricciardo da Camino, who is said to have been murdered at Trevigi, where the rivers (Sile and Cagnano meet) while he was engaged in playing at chess.
v. 50. The web.] The net or snare into, which he is destined to fall.
v. 50. Feltro.] The Bishop of Felto having received a number of fugitives from Ferrara, who were in opposition to the Pope, under a promise of protection, afterwards gave them up, so that they were reconducted to that city, and the greater part of them there put to death.
v. 53. Malta’s.] A tower, either in the citadel of Padua, which under the tyranny of Ezzolino, had been “with many a foul and midnight murder fed,” or (as some say) near a river of the same name, that falls into the lake of Bolsena, in which the Pope was accustomed to imprison such as had been guilty of an irremissible sin.
v. 56 This priest.] The bishop, who, to show himself a zealous partisan of the Pope, had committed the above-mentioned act of treachery.
v. 58. We descry.] “We behold the things that we predict, in the mirrors of eternal truth.”
v. 64. That other joyance.] Folco.
v. 76. Six shadowing wings.] “Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings.” Isaiah, c. vi. 2.
v. 80. The valley of waters.] The Mediterranean sea.
v. 80. That.] The great ocean.
v. 82. Discordant shores.] Europe and Africa.
v. 83. Meridian.] Extending to the east, the Mediterranean at last reaches the coast of Palestine, which is on its horizon when it enters the straits of Gibraltar. “Wherever a man is,” says Vellutello, “there he has, above his head, his own particular meridian circle.”
v. 85. —’Twixt Ebro’s stream
And Macra’s.]
Eora, a river to the west, and Macra, to the east of Genoa, where
Folco was born.
v. 88. Begga.] A place in Africa, nearly opposite to Genoa.
v. 89. Whose haven.] Alluding to the terrible slaughter of the Genoese made by the Saracens in 936, for which event Vellutello refers to the history of Augustino Giustiniani.
v. 91. This heav’n.] The planet Venus.
v. 93. Belus’ daughter.] Dido.
v. 96. She of Rhodope.] Phyllis.
v. 98. Jove’s son.] Hercules.
v. 112. Rahab.] Heb. c. xi. 31.
v. 120. With either palm.] “By the crucifixion of Christ”
v. 126. The cursed flower.] The coin of Florence, called the florin.
v. 130. The decretals.] The canon law.
v. 134. The Vatican.] He alludes either to the death of Pope Boniface VIII. or, as Venturi supposes, to the coming of the Emperor Henry VII. into Italy, or else, according to the yet more probable conjecture of Lombardi, to the transfer of the holy see from Rome to Avignon, which took place in the pontificate of Clement V.