“There thrice he attempted to throw his arms around his neck; thrice the phantom, grasped in vain, escaped his hold, like the fleet gales, or resembling most a fugitive dream.”

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Casella was a Florentine musician and friend of Dante, who here speaks to him with so much tenderness and affection as to make us regret that nothing more is known of him. Milton alludes to him in his Sonnet to Mr. H. Lawes:⁠—

“Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher

Than his Casella, whom he woo’d to sing

Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.”