[850] Friar Alberic: Alberigo of the Manfredi, a gentleman of Faenza, who late in life became one of the Merry Friars. See Inf. xxiii. 103. In the course of a dispute with his relative Manfred he got a hearty box on the ear from him. Feigning to have forgiven the insult he invited Manfred with a youthful son to dinner in his house, having first arranged that when they had finished their meat, and he called for fruit, armed men should fall on his guests. ‘The fruit of Friar Alberigo’ passed into a proverb. Here he is repaid with a date for a fig—gets more than he bargained for.
[851] Ptolomæa: This division is named from the Hebrew Ptolemy, who slew his relatives at a banquet, they being then his guests (1 Maccab. xvi.).
[852] Atropos: The Fate who cuts the thread of life and sets the soul free from the body.
[853] Branca d’Oria: A Genoese noble who in 1275 slew his father-in-law Michael Zanche (Inf. xxii. 88) while the victim sat at table as his invited guest.—This mention of Branca is of some value in helping to ascertain when the Inferno was finished. He was in imprisonment and exile for some time before and up to 1310. In 1311 he was one of the citizens of Genoa heartiest in welcoming the Emperor Henry to their city. Impartial as Dante was, we can scarcely think that he would have loaded with infamy one who had done what he could to help the success of Henry, on whom all Dante’s hopes were long set, and by their reception of whom on his descent into Italy he continued to judge his fellow-countrymen. There is considerable reason to believe that the Inferno was published in 1309; this introduction of Branca helps to prove that at least it was published before 1311. If this was so, then Branca d’Oria lived long enough to read or hear that for thirty-five years his soul had been in Hell.—It is significant of the detestation in which Dante held any breach of hospitality, that it is as a treacherous host and not as a treacherous kinsman that Branca is punished—in Ptolomæa and not in Caïna. Cast as the poet was on the hospitality of the world, any disloyalty to its obligations came home to him. For such disloyalty he has invented one of the most appalling of the fierce retributions with the vision of which he satisfied his craving for vengeance upon prosperous sin.—It may be that the idea of this demon-possession of the traitor is taken from the words, ‘and after the sop Satan entered into Judas.’
[854] Of his kinsmen one: A cousin or nephew of Branca was engaged with him in the murder of Michael Zanche. The vengeance came on them so speedily that their souls were plunged in Ptolomæa ere Zanche breathed his last.
[855] To yield him none: Alberigo being so unworthy of courtesy. See note on 117. But another interpretation of the words has been suggested which saves Dante from the charge of cruelty and mean quibbling; namely, that he did not clear the ice from the sinner’s eyes because then he would have been seen to be a living man—one who could take back to the world the awful news that Alberigo’s body was the dwelling-place of a devil.
[856] Ah, Genoese, etc.: The Genoese, indeed, held no good character. One of their annalists, under the date of 1293, describes the city as suffering from all kinds of crime.
[857] Romagna’s blackest soul: Friar Alberigo.