[9] Some years later a new officer, the Executor of Justice, was instituted to carry out these ordinances instead of leaving them to the Gonfaloniere. This Executor of Justice was associated with the Captain, but was usually a foreign Guelf burgher; later he developed into the Bargello, head of police and governor of the gaol. It will, of course, be seen that while Podestà, Captain, Executore (the Rettori), were aliens, the Gonfaloniere and Priors (the Signori) were necessarily Florentines and popolani.
[10] Rossetti's translation of the ripresa and second stanza of the Ballata Perch'i' no spero di tornar giammai.
[11] "Thou shall abandon everything beloved most dearly; this is the arrow which the bow of exile shall first shoot.
"Thou shalt make trial of how salt doth taste another's bread, and how hard the path to descend and mount upon another's stair."
–Wicksteed's translation.
[12] "On that great seat where thou dost fix thine eyes, for the crown's sake already placed above it, ere at this wedding feast thyself do sup,
"Shall sit the soul (on earth 'twill be imperial) of the lofty Henry, who shall come to straighten Italy ere she be ready for it."
[13] i.e. The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin.
[14] Purg. VI.–
"Athens and Lacedæmon, they who made
The ancient laws, and were so civilised,
Made towards living well a little sign
Compared with thee, who makest such fine-spun
Provisions, that to middle of November
Reaches not what thou in October spinnest.
How oft, within the time of thy remembrance,
Laws, money, offices and usages
Hast thou remodelled, and renewed thy members?
And if thou mind thee well, and see the light,
Thou shalt behold thyself like a sick woman,
Who cannot find repose upon her down,
But by her tossing wardeth off her pain."
–Longfellow.
[15] "In painting Cimabue thought that he
Should hold the field, now Giotto has the cry,
So that the other's fame is growing dim."
[16] The "Colleges" were the twelve Buonuomini and the sixteen Gonfaloniers of the Companies. Measures proposed by the Signoria had to be carried in the Colleges before being submitted to the Council of the People, and afterwards to the Council of the Commune.