Florence was first under the protection of the god Mars; afterwards under that of St. John the Baptist. But in Dante’s time the statue of Mars was still standing on a column at the head of the Ponte Vecchio. It was overthrown by an inundation of the Arno in 1333. See note 213 . ↩

Florence was destroyed by Totila in 450, and never by Attila. In Dante’s time the two seem to have been pretty generally confounded. The Ottimo Comento remarks upon this point:⁠—

“Some say that Totila was one person and Attila another; and some say that he was one and the same man.”