CANTO XIX
v. 18. Saint John’s fair dome.] The apertures in the rock were of the same dimensions as the fonts of St. John the Baptist at Florence, one of which, Dante says he had broken, to rescue a child that was playing near and fell in. He intimates that the motive of his breaking the font had been maliciously represented by his enemies.
v. 55. O Boniface!] The spirit mistakes Dante for Boniface VIII. who was then alive, and who he did not expect would have arrived so soon, in consequence, as it should seem, of a prophecy, which predicted the death of that Pope at a later period. Boniface died in 1303.
v. 58. In guile.] “Thou didst presume to arrive by fraudulent means at the papal power, and afterwards to abuse it.”
v. 71. In the mighty mantle I was rob’d.] Nicholas III, of the Orsini family, whom the poet therefore calls “figliuol dell’ orsa,” “son of the she-bear.” He died in 1281.
v. 86. From forth the west, a shepherd without law.] Bertrand de Got Archbishop of Bordeaux, who succeeded to the pontificate in 1305, and assumed the title of Clement V. He transferred the holy see to Avignon in 1308 (where it remained till 1376), and died in 1314.
v. 88. A new Jason.] See Maccabees, b. ii. c. iv. 7,8.
v. 97. Nor Peter.] Acts of the Apostles, c.i. 26.
v. 100. The condemned soul.] Judas.
v. 103. Against Charles.] Nicholas III. was enraged against Charles I, King of Sicily, because he rejected with scorn a proposition made by that Pope for an alliance between their families. See G. Villani, Hist. l. vii. c. liv.
v. 109. Th’ Evangelist.] Rev. c. xvii. 1, 2, 3. Compare Petrarch. Opera fol. ed. Basil. 1551. Epist. sine titulo liber. ep. xvi. p. 729.
v. 118. Ah, Constantine.] He alludes to the pretended gift of the Lateran by Constantine to Silvester, of which Dante himself seems to imply a doubt, in his treatise “De Monarchia.” - “Ergo scindere Imperium, Imperatori non licet. Si ergo aliquae, dignitates per Constantinum essent alienatae, (ut dicunt) ab Imperio,” &c. l. iii. The gift is by Ariosto very humorously placed in the moon, among the things lost or abused on earth. Di varj fiori, &c. O. F. c. xxxiv. st. 80.
Milton has translated both this passage and that in the text.
Prose works, vol. i. p. 11. ed. 1753.