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.