[66] Purg. ii. 91.
[67] Purg. iv. 123.
[68] Sacchetti’s stories of how Dante showed displeasure with the blacksmith and the donkey-driver who murdered his canzoni are interesting only as showing what kind of legends about him were current in the streets of Florence.—Sacchetti, Novelle, cxiv, cxv.
[69] Purg. xii. 101.
[70] Purg. xi. 94:—
‘In painting Cimabue deemed the field
His own, but now on Giotto goes the cry,
Till by his fame the other’s is concealed.’
[71] Giotto is often said to have drawn inspiration from the Comedy; but that Dante, on his side, was indebted to the new school of painting and sculpture appears from many a passage of the Purgatorio.
[72] Serfage had been abolished in 1289. But doubt has been thrown on the authenticity of the deed of abolition. See Perrens, Hist. de Florence, vol. ii. p. 349.
[73] No unusual provision in the industrious Italian cities. Harsh though it may seem, it was probably regarded as a valuable concession to the nobles, for their disaffection appears to have been greatly caused by their uneasiness under disabilities. There is much obscurity on several points. How, for example, came the nobles to be allowed to retain the command of the vast resources of the Parte Guelfa? This made them almost independent of the Commonwealth.
[74] At a later period the Priors were known as the Signory.