• As Tertullian says:⁠— “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” ↩
• The bad example of the head of the Church. ↩
• By excommunication, which shut out its victims from the table of the Lord. ↩
• Pope Boniface VIII , who is here accused of dealing out ecclesiastical censures only to be paid for revoking them. ↩
• John the Baptist. But here is meant his image on the golden florin of Florence. ↩
• The Heaven of Jupiter continued. ↩
• The eagle speaks as one person, though composed of a multitude of spirits. Here Dante’s idea of unity under the Empire finds expression. ↩
• This mirror of Divine Justice is the planet Saturn, to which Dante alludes in Canto IX 61, where, speaking of the Intelligences of Saturn, he says:⁠— “Above us there are mirrors, Thrones you call them, From which shines out on us God Judicant.” ↩
• Whether a good life outside the pale of the holy Catholic faith could lead to Paradise. ↩
• Dante here calls the blessed spirits lauds, or “praises of the grace divine,” as in Inferno II 103 he calls Beatrice “the true praise of God.” ↩