[Line 1: This "Divina Commedia," in which human science or Philosophy is symbolized in Virgil, and divine science or Theology in Beatrice.
"Fiorenza la Bella," Florence the Fair. In one of his Canzoni, Dante says,—
"O mountain-song of mine, thou goest thy way;
Florence my town thou shalt perchance behold,
Which bars me from itself,
Devoid of love and naked of compassion.">[
[Line 9: This allusion to the Church of San Giovanni, "il mio bel San Giovanni," as Dante calls it elsewhere, (Inf. xix. 17,) is a fitting prelude to the Canto in which St. John is to appear. Like the "laughing of the grass" in Canto xxx. 77, it is a "foreshadowing preface," ombrifero prefazio, of what follows.
See Canto xxiv. 150;
"So, giving me its benediction, singing,
Three times encircled me, when I was silent,
The apostolic light.">[
[Line 14: St. Peter. "That we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures." Epistle of St. James, i. 18.]
[Line 18: St. James. Pilgrimages are made to his tomb at Compostella in Galicia.]
[Line 30: The General Epistle of St. James, called the Epistola Cattolica, i. 17. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights." Our Basilica: Paradise: the Church Triumphant.]