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.
CANTO X
v. 7. The point.] “To that part of heaven,” as Venturi explains it, “in which the equinoctial circle and the Zodiac intersect each other, where the common motion of the heavens from east to west may be said to strike with greatest force against the motion proper to the planets; and this repercussion, as it were, is here the strongest, because the velocity of each is increased to the utmost by their respective distance from the poles. Such at least is the system of Dante.”
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.