[722] Mahomet: It has been objected to Dante by M. Littré that he treats Mahomet, the founder of a new religion, as a mere schismatic. The wonder would have been had he dwelt on the good qualities of the Prophet at a time when Islam still threatened Europe. He goes on the fact that Mahomet and his followers rent great part of the East and South from Christendom; and for this the Prophet is represented as being mutilated in a sorer degree than the other schismatics.
[723] Ali: Son-in-law of Mahomet.
[724] Fra Dolcin: At the close of the thirteenth century, Boniface being Pope, the general discontent with the corruption of the higher clergy found expression in the north of Italy in the foundation of a new sect, whose leader was Fra Dolcino. What he chiefly was—enthusiast, reformer, or impostor—it is impossible to ascertain; all we know of him being derived from writers in the Papal interest. Among other crimes he was charged with that of teaching the lawfulness of telling an Inquisitor a lie to save your life, and with prophesying the advent of a pious Pope. A holy war on a small scale was preached against him. After suffering the extremities of famine, snowed up as he was among the mountains, he was taken prisoner and cruelly put to death (1307). It may have been in order to save himself from being suspected of sympathy with him, that Dante, whose hatred of Boniface and the New Pharisees was equal to Dolcino’s, provides for him by anticipation a place with Mahomet.
[725] Pier da Medicin: Medicina is in the territory of Bologna. Piero is said to have stirred up dissensions between the Polentas of Ravenna and the Malatestas of Rimini.
[726] From Vercelli, etc.: From the district of Vercelli to where the castle of Marcabò once stood, at the mouth of the Po, is a distance of two hundred miles. The plain is Lombardy.
[727] Majolica, etc.: On all the Mediterranean, from Cyprus in the east to Majorca in the west.
[728] The traitor, etc.: The one-eyed traitor is Malatesta, lord of Rimini, the Young Mastiff of the preceding Canto. He invited the two chief citizens of Fano, named in the text, to hold a conference with him, and procured that on their way they should be pitched overboard opposite the castle of Cattolica, which stood between Fano and Rimini. This is said to have happened in 1304.
[729] Focara: The name of a promontory near Cattolica, subject to squalls. The victims were never to double the headland.
[730] Curio: The Roman Tribune who, according to Lucan—the incident is not historically correct—found Cæsar hesitating whether to cross the Rubicon, and advised him: Tolle moras: semper nocuit differre paratis. ‘No delay! when men are ready they always suffer by putting off.’ The passage of the Rubicon was counted as the beginning of the Civil War.—Curio gets scant justice, seeing that in Dante’s view Cæsar in all he did was only carrying out the Divine purpose regarding the Empire.
[731] Mosca: In 1215 one of the Florentine family of the Buondelmonti jilted a daughter of the Amidei. When these with their friends met to take counsel touching revenge for the insult, Mosca, one of the Uberti or of the Lamberti, gave his opinion in the proverb, Cosa fatta ha capo: ‘A thing once done is done with.’ The hint was approved of, and on the following Easter morning the young Buondelmonte, as, mounted on a white steed and dressed in white he rode across the Ponte Vecchio, was dragged to the ground and cruelly slain. All the great Florentine families took sides in the feud, and it soon widened into the civil war between Florentine Guelf and Ghibeline.