• Some commentators interpret these dogs as poverty and despair, still pursuing their victims. The Ottimo Comento calls them “poor men who, to follow pleasure and the kitchens of other people, abandoned their homes and families, and are therefore transformed into hunting dogs, and pursue and devour their masters.” ↩
• Jacopo da St. Andrea was a Paduan of like character and life as Lano. “Among his other squanderings,” says the Ottimo Comento , “it is said that, wishing to see a grand and beautiful fire, he had one of his own villas burned.” ↩
• 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.” ↩