[471] See Moore, Studies in Dante iii. pp. 75-84, for a detailed discussion of this passage. Several commentators have held that lines 1 to 6 describe the dawn of day elsewhere; and it is true that it would be nearly 6 a.m. and Pisces would be on the horizon in Italy when the hour was nearly 9 p.m. in Purgatory.
[472] “Vespers there.”
[473] “Here.”
[474] See for instance the “Carte Pisane,“ and the Central Mediterranean map of Vesconte, dating from about 1300 and 1311 respectively, in Beazley’s Dawn of Geography, iii. Latitudes and longitudes are not given, but from certain centres lines radiate to all points of the compass, like great spiders’ webs.
[475] De Mon. II. iii. 87-90. etc.
[476] “It is bounded on the east and north by the Tyrrhenian sea, which lies towards the port of Rome,” Moore, Studies in Dante iii. p. 72.
[477] Purg. xxxii. 56, 57.
“My more than father said unto me, Son, Come now, because the time that is ordained us More usefully should be apportioned out.” Purg. xxiii. 4-6. (Longfellow).
[479] Purg. xxi. 20-27.