Margherita Frankel (“La similitudine della zara [Purg. VI, 1-12] ed il rapporto fra Dante e Virgilio nell'Antepurgatorio,” in Studi Americani su Dante, ed. G. C. Alessio and R. Hollander [Milan: F. Angeli, 1989]), pp. 113-16, discussing this opening simile, citing Hollander (“Purgatorio II: The New Song and the Old,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 6 [1990]), p. 31, from an as yet unpublished earlier version (completed in 1983), deploys the argument that the figure of the loser within the simile equates with that of Virgil outside it. That so reasonable an interpretation took six and a half centuries to be developed is a mark of the continuing obstinately rosy view of Virgil and of his role in the poem among its interpreters. It was only in 1968 that any commentator tried to find a counterpart for the 'loser'; Giacalone thinks he may correspond to Dante, because of the poet's many troubles at the hands of his enemies. Yet it is hard to see how Dante can be both winner (to whom he is explicitly compared) and loser. One commentator (Singleton to VI.2) offers the following pronouncement: 'This figure of the loser, though serving to make the whole scene more graphic, finds no correspondence in the second term of the simile.' He is in part correct: both Dante and the crowd of petitioners do correspond to figures within the simile (winner and the crowd of spectators, respectively); that the reference to Virgil is suppressed, inviting the reader to supply it, makes it all the more telling. Reviewing the commentators, we are able to witness centuries of avoidance behavior as each struggles to preserve his innocence (e.g., Momigliano, comm. on these verses): the simile is produced 'as a piece unto itself, with but slight regard for the context'). Maria Picchio Simonelli (“Il giuoco della zara e i mali d'Italia: lettura del canto VI del Purgatorio,” in Studi in memoria di Giorgio Varanini. I: Dal Duecento al Quattrocento [Pisa: Giardini ( = Italianistica 21), 1992]), pp. 331-41 , while properly rejecting this argument, goes on to insist on an unlikely solution: the loser is the city of Florence. For a reading that takes issue with Singleton and sees that the 'loser' is undoubtedly Virgil (if without citing his predecessors in this precise understanding), see John Kleiner (“On Failing One's Teachers: Dante, Virgil, and the Ironies of Instruction,” in Sparks and Seeds: Medieval Literature and Its Afterlife [Essays in Honor of John Freccero], ed. Dana E. Stewart and Alison Cornish [Turnhout: Brepols, 2000]), pp. 69-70.

For information on the game of zara (from, according to commentators, Arabic zahr, a die, through French hazard and Provençal azar) see Singleton's lengthy gloss (comm. to verse 1). Similar to the modern game of craps, zara involved betting on the numbers, from 3 to 18, resulting from the cast of three dice. The numbers 3, 4, 17, and 18 were, like 2 and 12 in the modern game, 'craps,' or zara, i.e., an undesirable result – unless the player called them out before he threw his dice. The game was apparently played by two players, as is reflected by Dante's reference to only a single winner and loser in this passage.

At verse 8 the reference is to the reward the winner traditionally bestowed upon the onlookers – a bit of his winnings (a practice found today in those at gambling tables who tip the croupier when they conclude their gambling happily).

These six males, all of whom died violently between 1278 and 1297, are presented as a sort of coda to the three developed figures who bring the preceding canto to its end (Jacopo, Bonconte, Pia), leaving us with the impression of the potentially more extensive narratives that might have accompanied their names, with still more resultant pathos. They also, as Chiavacci Leonardi (Purgatorio, con il commento di A. M. C. L. [Milan: Mondadori, 1994]), p. 173, points out, remind us, in their violent deaths, of the unsettled political condition of Italy (even though the last of them, Pierre de la Brosse, is French), a subject that will dominate the final section of this canto.

The Aretine is Benincasa da Laterina. See Toynbee (“Benincasa d'Arezzo” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). Jacopo della Lana (comm. to these lines) says that Ghino cut off Benincasa's head in full view of the assembled papal court of Boniface VIII (ca. 1297) and somehow managed to make good his escape. Ghino di Tacco was of a Sienese noble family; exiled from his city, he became a famous highwayman. According to Boccaccio (Decameron X.ii), his nobility of character eventually resulted in his reconciliation with Pope Boniface before both of them died (in 1303). In Dante's reference to him here there is no such positive treatment; Benincasa, not Ghino, is presented as being saved.

This brief and unadorned reference is taken by nearly all the early commentators to refer to Guccio de' Tarlati di Pietramala, a Ghibelline of Arezzo, who was in an attacking party against the Bostoli, Aretine Guelphs in exile at the fortified castle of Rondine. Some assert that, when the forces of the Bostoli counterattacked, Guccio galloped, on a runaway horse, into the Arno, where he drowned. Others say that his death occurred while he was in pursuit of the enemy at that encounter. (The text would allow either interpretation.) Still others claim that his death occurred during the rout of Campaldino, shortly before the presence of the war party at Rondine, in 1289; but see the next note.

Federico Novello, son of Guido Novello of the Conti Guidi of Romena, in the Casentino (see the note to Inf. XXX.58-61), died when he came to the aid of the Tarlati, besieging the Bostoli (see preceding note), ca. 1291. It would seem likely that Dante thought of both men as dying in the same effort.

The Pisan whom Dante observes is consistently identified, if variously named (Giovanni, Vanni, Farinata [most of the early commentators right through the nineteenth century], Gano [see Torraca, comm. to verse 17] – the last now commonly accepted), as the son of Marzucco degli Scornigiani, a widely known and respected judge of Pisa until the time of Ugolino's joint rulership (with archbishop Ruggieri – see the note to Inf. XXXIII.1-3) in 1287. That Ugolino himself was involved in the pitiless slaying of the son of 'the good Marzucco' (Purg. VI.18) is attested by various early commentators, e.g., Benvenuto, saying that his source was Giovanni Boccaccio (comm. to these verses), the Anonimo Fiorentino (comm. to these verses) and John of Serravalle (comm. to these verses). Whether the execution (by decapitation) was carried out under Ugolino's direct orders or not, it occurred in 1287 when Ugolino had returned to Pisa as its co-ruler (with Ruggieri), and necessarily would have been connected, in Dante's mind, with Ugolino's complicity. If Dante wrote this scene with that opinion in mind, it helps to explain his ironic treatment of Ugolino's appeal for pity.

Evidence for Marzucco's fortitude is ascribed to one of two anecdotes by the early commentators: either he astounded Ugolino by his calm demeanor when he, no longer a judge but a Franciscan novice, asked that the corpse of his son be taken up from the public square and buried (to which request the much impressed Ugolino assented) or he exemplified Christian forgiveness in his decision not to seek revenge for the judicial murder of his son. Both anecdotes may, however, be pertinent. In 1286, before these events, Marzucco had ended his long and distinguished career in Pisa as jurist (ca. 1249-86) to become a Franciscan and indeed eventually resided in the Franciscan house at Santa Croce in Florence from 1291 until his death in 1300 or 1301. It is possible that Dante knew him and heard of the events in Pisa and of Ugolino's involvement in them directly from 'lo buon Marzucco' himself.

The first of these two is Count Orso degli Alberti della Cerbaia, murdered by his cousin, Count Alberto da Mangona, ca. 1286. Their respective fathers, Napoleone and Alessandro degli Alberti da Mangona, have been seen locked in eternal hatred, in Caïna, as treacherous to kindred in Inferno XXXII.40-60. Like father, like cousin.

The only non-Italian in the group, and the first of them to die (in 1278), is the Frenchman, Pierre de la Brosse. As chamberlain of the French king Philip III, Pierre (in 1276) made charges against the queen, Mary of Brabant, for having poisoned the heir to the throne, Philip's son by his former queen (Isabella of Aragon), Louis. Within two years he not only lost his place, as favorite of the king, but was brutally put to death before the assembled nobles of the court. The cause of his shame and death seems to have been, in Dante's mind, the nefarious behavior of the queen, perhaps in accusing him wrongfully of an attempt upon her chastity. Dante seems to have believed the common version of the story, which would put Mary of Brabant (in our day a province of Belgium) not in purgatory, where her victim has his victory, but in hell (probably in the last of the Malebolge along with Potiphar's wife (Inf. XXX.97) if she failed to repent her evildoing. Since she lived almost as long as Dante would (she died on 12 January 1321), one wonders if she became aware of this warning. It should also be remembered that Mary's son did in fact become king of France and that Dante allowed his father salvation (we see Philip III, the Bold, in ante-purgatorio [Purg. VII.103-111] but we see him lamenting the reign of his and Mary's son, Philip IV, the Fair, referred to as 'the plague of France' at Purg. VII.109).

This Pierre, a loyal courtier done in by the envy rampant at his court, reminds Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to these verses) of Dante's Pier della Vigna (Inf. XIII), also freed by the poet from culpability in betraying his king. But such a judgment fails to consider the far greater problem of Pier's suicide, which, whatever his guilt with regard to the affairs of the kingdom, betrayed Christ, a greater King. Pierre, like Pier, is allowed to speak in his own defense about his political situation, and Dante allows him, like Pier, his say, without in either case necessarily accepting their claims as facts. That this Pierre is saved probably makes his words more believable – those on the mountain or in the heavens speak truthfully, as far as we can determine, in all cases; those in hell are surely less reliable.

Benvenuto's gloss is also responsible for buttressing the myth that Dante actually went to Paris and there learned the truths of this case. There is no evidence to support the notion that such a journey ever occurred.

Dante's leading question puts Virgil on the spot. In Aeneid VI.376 the Sibyl answers Palinurus's request of Aeneas that he have his unburied corpse laid to rest by denying him such a hope: 'desine fata deum flecti sperare precando' (cease hoping that decrees of the gods may be turned aside by prayer). Does this answer compel us to believe that the penitents are deluded in their hope for the efficacy of prayer? Dante's question is a necessarily tricky one for Virgil to have to deal with. See Hollander (Il Virgilio dantesco: tragedia nella “Commedia” [Florence: Olschki, 1983]), pp. 113-15.

Virgil's response seems casuistic, at least in part. In order not to deny Christians' belief in the efficacy of prayer, he first of all examines the notion that God's will has been bent by the desires of others if such prayer be acted upon. If God's will is won over in an instant by the loving prayer of others, that is as He wills, and there is only an apparent inconsistency. He has merely accepted in immediate payment the 'sum' offered on behalf of the guilty party rather than insisting on an extended time of solitary penance. It is a bit difficult to reconcile this formulation, however, with the actual words in the Aeneid, which seem far less accommodating than this explanation of them. When Virgil goes on to explain that, in any case, Palinurus was not praying to the true God in the passage referred to in Book VI, our credulity is still more gravely tested. The statement of the Sibyl is totalizing, while Virgil now reconstructs it to have a meaning that it never could have had, i.e., some prayer is effective, some not. We witness another case in which the pagan author is forced to pay for his error in rather ungainly ways. Here Virgil confidently attacks inadequate Christian readings of the Aeneid as though they were the source of the poem's theological failure. 'Plain is my writing' indeed! See Sonia Gentile's discussion of this passage (“La necromanzia di Eritone da Lucano a Dante,” in Dante e il “locus inferni”: Creazione letteraria e tradizione interpretativa, ed. Simona Foà e Sonia Gentili [Rome: Bulzoni, 2000 (= Studi [e testi] italiani 4 [1999])]), pp. 39-43.

Singleton, in his gloss to this passage, is perhaps too open to Virgil's twisting logic. For him, Palinurus 'was a pagan, living in the period between the Fall and the Redemption, a time, that is, in which God's grace (with notable exceptions) was withdrawn from mankind. See Paradiso XXXII.82, 'ma poi che 'l tempo de la grazia venne,' i.e., when grace returned to man through Christ's sacrifice, which, by clear implication, makes the time before Christ a time “without grace.”' Yet it was in this time that such as Ripheus and Cato were apparently set apart to be saved at the harrowing of hell. These 'notable exceptions' remind us precisely that Virgil was not one of them.

Virgil, having failed to develop a convincing case for his own expertise, now turns to Beatrice's authority in this matter. For Beatrice's putative relationship to an allegorical identity see the note to Purgatorio XVIII.46-48.

In response to Dante's desire to move more quickly toward Beatrice, Virgil warns that there is more time to be spent on the mountain than Dante imagines.

This figure will shortly (Purg. VI.74) reveal himself to be Sordello, the thirteenth-century Italian poet, who wrote in Provençal. 'Sordello was born (c. 1200) at Goito, village on the Mincio, about 10 miles NW of Mantua; shortly after 1220 he was resident at the court of Count Ricciardo di San Bonifazio of Verona, who had married (c. 1222) Cunizza, daughter of Ezzelino II da Romano (Par. IX.32). In or about 1226, Sordello, with the connivance of her brother, Ezzelino III (Inf. XII.109-110), abducted Cunizza, and took her to Ezzelino's court. Later he formed a liaison with her, and, to escape her brother's resentment, was forced to take refuge in Provence, where he made a lengthy stay at the court of Count Raymond Berenger IV (Par. IV.134). There he became acquainted with the Count's seneschal, Romieu de Villeneuve (Par. VI.128). While in Provence (c. 1240) Sordello wrote one of his most important poems, the lament for Blacatz, one of Count Raymond's Provençal barons, from which Dante is supposed to have taken the idea of assigning to Sordello the function of pointing out the various princes in ante-purgatory (Purg. VII.49-136). After Count Raymond's death (1245) Sordello remained for some years at the court of his son-in-law, Charles of Anjou (Purg. VII.113). When the latter in the spring of 1265 set out on his expedition to Italy to take possession of the kingdom of Sicily, Sordello followed him.... Sordello was among those who shared in the distribution of Apulian fiefs made by Charles to his Provençal barons after his victories over the Hohenstaufen at Benevento and Tagliacozzo, to Sordello and his heirs being assigned several castles in the Abruzzi, under deeds dated March and June, 1269. No further record of Sordello has been preserved, and the date and place of his death are unknown.... Of Sordello's poems some forty have been preserved, besides the lament for Blacatz already mentioned, is a lengthy didactic poem, the Ensenhamen, or Documentum Honoris' (Toynbee, “Sordello” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).

Beginning perhaps with Torraca (comm. to Purg. VII.40), commentators have seen elements of Virgil's Elysian fields and the guide therein, the poet Musaeus (Aen.VI. 666-678), in Dante's presentation of Sordello. See Hollander (“Le opere di Virgilio nella Commedia di Dante,” in Dante e la “bella scola” della poesia: Autorità e sfida poetica, ed. A. A. Iannucci [Ravenna: Longo, 1993]), p. 302.

Baranski (“'Sordellus... qui... patrium vulgare deseruit': A Note on De vulgari eloquentia, I, 15, sections 2-6,” in The Cultural Heritage of the Italian Renaissance: Essays in Honour of T. G. Griffith, ed. C. E. J. Griffiths and R. Hastings [Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1993]), pp. 23-24, argues that the first two adjectives used in this tercet, altera and disdegnosa, often in other Dantean texts pejorative, reflect Dante's ambiguous attitude toward Sordello, and attempts to understand this ambiguity as reflecting Dante's sense of Sordello's sinful life and penitent afterlife. (But see Benvenuto's understanding [comm. to these verses] that they here reflect Sordello's lofty mind and indignation at moral turpitude or dishonesty, or Venturi's insistence [comm. to verse 62] that these are words of praise, not of blame, as when Petrarch [Rime 105.9-10] praises Laura for being altera e disdegnosa and not superba o ritrosa [prideful or difficult]. In 1894 Poletto [comm. to Inf. XIV.43-48] saw the clear similarity in the personalities of Farinata and Sordello, though it would be Croce (La poesia di Dante, 2nd ed. [Bari: Laterza, 1921]), p. 112, who would refer to Sordello as 'the Farinata of purgatory.') Baranski's lengthy argument is centered in his perception that, in De vulgari (I.xv.2), Sordello's decision to abandon his native (Mantuan) vernacular for Provençal constitutes, for Dante, a serious linguistic 'sin,' as is reflected by his championing of one's own vernacular in chapters x-xiii of the first treatise of Convivio. His view of Sordello thus necessarily makes him a poet at some distance from Dante and not, as some have claimed, a 'figure' of Dante. Against this view see Barolini (Dante's Poets [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984]), pp. 153-73, who presents Sordello as the sort of 'political poet' who indeed would strike Dante favorably (as opposed to Bertran de Born). And for a similar view see Picone (“All'ombra di Sordello: una lettura di Purgatorio VII,” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 12 [1998]), pp. 62-63. It is worth considering that Dante may have distanced himself from his early (negative) view (ca. 1305) of Sordello as he would do with any number of other judgments that he made in the two earlier works. See Hollander (Dante: A Life in Works [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001]), pp. 72, 88-90. The praise of Sordello's linguistic excellence here is surely at odds with Dante's denigration of it in the earlier treatise on poetic language. To assume that Dante's views in the Commedia accord with those he had expressed earlier is neither logically nor experimentally a valid procedure.

For Sordello's 'scandalous love life' see Baranski, pp. 20-23 and notes (for bibliography).

The intensity of the first four sets of encounters on the mountain has varied: the intense personalness of Manfred was countered by the quizzical distance of Belacqua, which in turn was balanced by the three intense self-narratives of Jacopo, Bonconte, and Pia. Sordello begins with a Belacqua-like reserve, only to be roused to a pitch of excitement by Virgil's revelation of his Mantuan homeland.

Sordello's pose may recall Genesis 49.9, where Judah, in Jacob's dying blessing, is described as a couching lion. Tommaseo was the first commentator to make this suggestion.

Virgil's desire for guidance may reflect the function of Musaeus in the parallel scene in the Aeneid (VI.676), which is to point out the way up the hillock to those gathered in the Elysian fields. See the note to Purgatorio VII.40.

As Scartazzini (comm. to this verse) pointed out, Sordello is unable to discern that Dante is here in the flesh because the sun is behind the mountain (see Purg. VI.55-57) and he does not cast a shadow.

The word 'Mantua' may have been intended, according to Benvenuto da Imola (followed by John of Serravalle), as the first word of Virgil's own Latin epitaph, 'Mantua me genuit....' See the note to Purgatorio III.27 and the note to Purgatorio V.134.

The civic patriotism of Sordello is awakened when Virgil mentions their common homeland. Their resulting embrace has been, when coupled with Dante's failed attempt to embrace Casella (Purg. II.76-81), the source of considerable puzzlement when it is considered along with the decision not to embrace arrived at by Statius and Virgil. See the note to Purgatorio XXI.130-136.

This passage begins what Benvenuto considers the third part of this canto, 'a digression against Italy and the principal authors of her desolation.' Dante himself, at Purgatorio VI.128, refers to his 'digressing' here; but no one can possibly imagine that this 'digression' is not central to his purpose. (On the subject of Dante's propensity to digress, see Sergio Corsi [Il “modus digressivus” nella “Divina Commedia” (Potomac, Md.: Scripta humanistica, 1987)]). The poet will directly address Italy herself, the Church, the uncrowned Habsburg emperor Albert, God, and, finally, Florence.

As has long been noted, the sixth canto of each cantica is devoted to the treatment of political issues, those of Florence (Inf.), of Italy (Purg.), of the empire (Par.) – though these subjects are intertwined. The precise nature of the 'parallelism' among the canti of the three cantiche is debated. An assertion of an 'orthodox' relationship (i.e., 1:1:1) is offered by Shaw (“A Parallel Structure for the Divina Commedia,” Stanford Italian Review 7 [1987], pp. 67-76); far different is that put forward by Kay (“Parallel Cantos in Dante's Commedia,” Res publica letterarum 15 [1992], pp. 109-13 and “The Sin(s) of Brunetto Latini,” Dante Studies 112 [1994], pp. 19-31), who argues that the most distinct parallels occur among the final 33 cantos of Inferno and the 33 in the other canticles (i.e., 2:1:1 to 34:33:33). For a different approach, one privileging parallel episodes, not necessarily reflecting numerical patterns, see Amilcare Iannucci (“Autogenesi dantesca: la tecnica dell' 'epidosio parallelo' nella Divina Commedia,” Lettere Italiane 33 [1981], pp. 305-28) and Lloyd Howard (Formulas of Repetition in Dante's “Commedia” [Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001]). It seems clear that, while there are any number of 'parallels' in the poem, Dante avoided any rigorous organization of these. Those who have attempted to find the signs of a more regulated system have not done so convincingly.

Bernardino Daniello (comm. to vv. 76-78) was apparently the first to notice the now often-cited biblical source for Dante's phrase 'donna di provincie' (princeps provinciarum) in Lamentations 1:1: 'How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!' Jeremiah's lament for Jerusalem had been a central reference point for the death of Beatrice, recorded in Vita nuova XXVIII.1.

The evident recollection of the central image of Ugolino's punishment (Inf. XXXII.127-132) may owe its deployment here to the earlier concern with the Ugolino-related reference to the 'good Marzucco' of Pisa. See the note to Inferno XXXIII.49.

That is, Italy's maritime provinces and her land-locked ones are all at war.

The language here clearly derives from Dante's earlier expression of these sentiments, as Andreoli (comm. to these verses) was perhaps the first to observe, in Convivio IV.ix.10: 'Thus we might say of the Emperor, if we were to describe his office with an image, that he is the one who rides in the saddle of the human will. How this horse pricks across the plain without a rider is more than evident, especially in wretched Italy, which has been left with no means whatsoever to govern herself' (tr. Lansing).

Justinian, who will have a major role in Paradiso (VI and VII), is adverted to here as the emperor who codified Roman law in the Corpus Juris Civilis.

The empty chariot of the empire is reflected in the similarly empty chariot of the Church in the procession of the Church Militant, beset by all its external and internal enemies, in Purgatorio XXXII.

The leaders of the Church are accused of having interfered in the civil governance of Italy, trying to guide its affairs by manipulating its 'bridle' without having allowed the horse's rider to seat himself in the saddle. The passage may reflect Dante's unhappiness either with the intrigues of Pope Boniface VIII, maneuvering to bring about the accession of Albert in 1298, or with those of Pope Clement V, who managed to control the election of the next emperor, Henry VII, after the death of 'German Albert' in 1308 – or with both pontiffs' involvements in imperial politics. The language here reflects the biblical text that had greatest currency in the antipapal political arguments of the time, apparently claiming an indisputable right to govern for the monarch, Matthew 22:21: 'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.'

The reference is to Albert I of Austria, uncrowned emperor for the ten years (1298-1308) that preceded the election of Henry VII. It is possible that Dante had in mind, as punishment of Albert's 'blood,' first the death of his firstborn son, Rudolph, in 1307, and then his own in the next year.

The image of Italy as uncontrolled animal, which has been operative since Purgatorio VI.89, now culminates in Sordello-like invective (see Maurizio Perugi [“Il Sordello di Dante e la tradizione mediolatina dell'invettiva,” Studi Danteschi 55 (1983), pp. 23-135]) against the Habsburg ruler.

Dante's post-eventum prophecy is clearly written after May 1308, but how much later? The really difficult question facing anyone who wants to resolve this question involves the identity of Albert's 'successor.' Is the reference simply to any successor who will feel compelled by pressure to act in Italophile ways? Or does Dante have Henry VII of Luxembourg, elected in 1308, in mind? Various commentators (e.g., Tozer, comm. to vv. 101-102; Trucchi, comm. to vv. 97-105; Momigliano, comm. to vv. 97-105) argue for a date of composition between 1308 and July 1310, when Henry finally announced his intention of coming to Italy, the 'garden of the empire.' If such was the case, Henry had not yet begun his descent into Italy (autumn of 1310) and the rather cool tone of Dante's appeal for imperial action would make sense. For after the emperor's advent, Dante's words about him are, at least at first (Epistle V, composed in the last quarter of 1310) enormously warm and hopeful. We would then have three stages in Dante's responses to Henry: (1) initial dubiety (1308-10), (2) great excitement as the campaign to put Italy under the governance of a true Roman emperor begins (1310-11), (3) eventual wary enthusiasm (see the two political letters written in the spring of 1311 [Epistles VI and VII]), given the precariousness of Henry's military and political situation (1311-13). (For Dante's political epistles see Lino Pertile [“Dante Looks Forward and Back: Political Allegory in the Epistles,” Dante Studies 115 (1997), pp. 1-17]; for this view of Dante's changing enthusiasms about Henry's Italian mission see Hollander [Dante: A Life in Works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001)], pp. 133-36.) One attraction of such a view is that it accounts for the tentative and unimpressed tone of Dante's first reactions to Henry's election, which he very likely might have known was engineered by Pope Clement V, both in this passage and in Purgatorio VII.96. In an endnote to his commentary on this canto, Porena (to vv. 100-102) argues that, with regard to Albert, we cannot do more than accept the 1300 date for the action of the poem, when Albert was still alive, and thus are not free to speculate on the poet's putting into play more than what he knew then, an argument that is necessarily thwarted by the poet's use of what is clearly post-eventum prophecy here (and elsewhere); for a later version of this argument, applying this 'rule' in other contexts, see Pertile (“Dante's Comedy: Beyond the Stilnovo,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 13 [1993]), pp. 57-63; for a response to Pertile's argument see Hollander (“Dante's 'dolce stil novo' and the Comedy,” in Dante: mito e poesia. Atti del secondo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. M. Picone and T. Crivelli [Florence: Cesati, 1999]), pp. 273-79.

Albert's father is Rudolph of Habsburg – see Purgatorio VII.94.

The final four tercets of the poet's apostrophe of Albert all begin with mocking appeals to him to come to Italy (Albert was alive at the imagined date of the poem, 1300) to see 'the garden of the empire laid waste.'

These first four names offer evidence of pandemic civil strife, exemplified by the Montecchi (Ghibellines) and the Guelph Cappelletti (Shakespeare's Montagues and Capulets), two political factions still bearing the names of their founding families but no longer remaining family units (see Singleton, comm. to verse 106).

The Filippeschi, a Ghibelline family of Orvieto, were in continual combat with the Guelph Monaldeschi. The former, encouraged by Henry's presence in Italy, attempted to vanquish the Monaldeschi but failed and were themselves banished from Orvieto in 1312.

In the nineteenth century some historians argued that all four families here referred to were Ghibelline, each coming from a different Italian city. In such a view the message Dante is here urging on Albert is that he be aware of the misfortune of his (Ghibelline) party resulting from his inaction.

'Santafiora, county in the Sienese Maremma, which from Cent. ix down to 1300 belonged to the powerful Ghibelline family of the Aldobrandeschi, who thence took their title of Counts of Santafiora. It was formerly an imperial fief, but at the time Dante wrote it was in the hands of the Guelfs of Siena' (Toynbee, “Santafiora” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). We meet one of the counts of Santafiora, Omberto Aldobrandesco, in Purgatorio XI.55-72.

The language here reflects the Bible, as commentators since Daniello (comm. to vv. 109-110) have noted, Jesus's words foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem (Luke 21:23), 'For there shall be great distress (pressura) in the land.'

Dante's view of Rome's desire to have an emperor in the saddle is obviously at odds with the typical Guelph view.

Albert's 'people' are the Italians, bereft of their true leader; he would be shamed were he to hear what they say of him for abandoning them.

'Jove' is used variously in the poem, a total of nine times (Inf. XIV.52, when Capaneus addresses the 'actual' Jupiter, the god who took his life; Inf. XXXI.45, when the poet conflates the Christian God and Jove as still menacing the rebellious giants who once attempted to storm Olympus; Inf. XXXI.92, when Virgil refers to Ephialtes' part in that attempt against Jove; in this passage, where the Christian God alone is meant; Purg. XXIX.120, when the poet refers to Jove's just punishment of Phaeton; Purg. XXXII.112, the poet refers to the eagle of empire as the 'bird of Jove'; Par. IV.62, where Beatrice names three of the planets; Par. XVIII.95, where the poet refers to the planet to which he has come; Par. XXII.145, where the poet again refers to the planet Jupiter). Here alone does it refer only to the Christian God (it refers to God as Jupiter in Inf. XXXI.45 in a similar usage). Although the poet realizes that his questioning of divine justice is out of bounds, he persists in it. For that justice to be evident, an imperial ruler who would set things in order would have been sent to govern the earth. The distracted quality of Dante's question might, again, indicate that he has heard of Henry's election, but not of his decision to come to Italy (see the note to Purg. VI.97-102).

God's plan for Italy, in any case, arises from his divine counsel, which is beyond our knowing: see Psalm 35:7: 'Iudicia tua abyssus multa' (Your judgments like the great deep), a citation first offered by Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 121-123).

Lacking an emperor, Italy is governed by local tyrants, while every yokel who joins a political party fancies himself the 'new Marcellus.' But which Marcellus? The debate continues. As Singleton points out, there were three contemporaneous Roman consuls named Marcellus and, among these, the most likely to be referred to here is Marcus Claudius Marcellus, consul in 51 B.C., and renowned for his hatred of Julius Caesar. It is he to whom Lucan refers (Phars. I.313): 'Marcellusque loquax et, nomina vana, Catones' (Marcellus, that man of words, and Cato, that empty name). This identification, which is supported by the majority of commentators (and given a magisterial first exposition by Benvenuto da Imola) and which apparently makes excellent sense in a context that certainly seems to inveigh against hostility to the emperor, is at least problematic: Lucan's words are part of Julius Caesar's infamous first speech to his troops, when he counsels their march on Rome (see the note to Inf. XXVI.112-113), and they also ridicule Cato the Younger, surely Dante's greatest classical hero. In fact, the Lucanian Caesar unites Marcellus, Cato, and Pompey as three of his great enemies. Dante probably would have felt that anyone claimed as an enemy by Julius, about to destroy the Roman republic, was his friend. It would be strange for Dante to lend himself to Julius's view of these men, even if he defends the Caesarean inviolability of the eventual emperor and condemns Brutus and Cassius for murdering him. In any case, it is perhaps wise to consider other alternatives. An early tradition held that the text read 'Metellus' (see Purg. IX.138) and not 'Marcellus,' but this possibility is no longer seriously considered. One other Marcellus, however, is worthy of consideration, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, consul in 222 B.C., successful in skirmishes against the great Hannibal, conqueror of Syracuse, welcomed back to Rome and referred to as 'the Sword of Rome,' the best known of all Romans of that name, and indeed mentioned in Aeneid VI.855 as one of Rome's greatest warriors, presented in the parade of heroes described by Anchises as preceding that latter-day Marcellus, the Emperor Augustus's adopted and very mortal son. Vellutello and Tommaseo (comms. to these verses) both think of Marcus Claudius as the Marcellus most likely to be mentioned here. One potential advantage of this solution is that it broadens the base of Dante's political scorn: if the Marcellus is Lucan's, then only Guelph bumpkins, hating the emperor, are indicated; if Virgil's, then all enthusiastic amateurs, of whatever party, who think of themselves as great men.

As Poletto (comm. to these verses) suggests, the reference to 'every clown that plays the partisan' may very well involve a nasty hidden dig at the Florentines for having given citizenship to country folk (Par. XVI.96), the 'new crowd with their sudden profits' (Inf. XVI.73). If so, the hidden reference serves as a handy transition to the invective against Florence, which immediately follows.

The fifth and final apostrophe is, naturally, of Florence herself, and is, naturally, dripping with sarcasm, reminiscent of the earlier apostrophe that opens Inferno XXVI, in which the city is asked to rejoice in her renown for having produced so many thieves who now disport themselves in hell. For the supposedly 'digressive' nature of Dante's remarks, see the note to Purgatorio VI.76-77.

The Florentine who shouts 'I'll take it on my shoulders' is not expressing his respect for civic virtue so much as masking his intention to promote himself to 'where the action is' under the guise of humble service.

The obvious sarcasm of the preceding seven tercets in 'praise' of Florence now yields to a devastating image of the city as wealthy invalid wife, which is perhaps derived from Augustine's Confessions (VI.16), as was first noted by Grandgent (comm. to verse 151). As Augustine nears conversion, at the very end of the sixth book, his soul still struggles to escape from God, to be free for 'better' things; he describes its inner state as follows: 'Whichever way it turned, on front or back or sides, it lay on a bed that was hard, for in you alone the soul can rest.'