• Dante alludes elsewhere to this intervention of Providence to save the Roman Empire by the hand of Scipio. Convito , IV 5, he says:⁠— “Is not the hand of God visible, when in the war with Hannibal, having lost so many citizens, that three bushels of rings were carried to Africa, the Romans would have abandoned the land, if that blessed youth Scipio had not undertaken the expedition to Africa, to secure its freedom?” ↩
• Boccaccio, “ Ninfale d’ Ameto ,” describing a battle between two flocks of swans, says the spectators “saw the air full of feathers, as when the nurse of Jove [Amalthaea, the Goat] holds Apollo, the white snow is seen to fall in flakes.” And Whittier, Snowbound :⁠— “Unwarmed by any sunset light, The gray day darkened into night, A night made hoary with the swarm And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, As zigzag wavering to and fro Crossed and recrossed the winged snow.” ↩
• When the sun is in Capricorn; that is, from the middle of December to the middle of January. ↩
• The spirits described in Canto XXII 131, as “The triumphant throng That comes rejoicing through this rounded ether,” and had remained behind when Christ and the Virgin Mary ascended. ↩