• At the close of the preceding Canto the time is indicated as being an hour after sunrise. Five hours later would be noon, or the scriptural sixth hour, the hour of the Crucifixion. Dante understands St. Luke to say that Christ died at this hour. Convito , IV 23:⁠— “Luke says that it was about the sixth hour when he died; that is, the culmination of the day.” Add to the “one thousand and two hundred sixtysix years,” the thirty-four of Christ’s life on earth, and it gives the vear 1300, the date of the Infernal Pilgrimage. ↩
• Broken by the earthquake at the time of the Crucifixion, as the rock leading to the Circle of the Violent, Canto XII 45:⁠— “And at that moment this primeval rock Both here and elsewhere made such overthrow.” As in the next Bolgia Hypocrites are punished, Dante couples them with the Violent, by making the shock of the earthquake more felt near them than elsewhere. ↩
• The next crag or bridge, traversing the dikes and ditches. ↩
• See Canto XVII 75 . ↩
• The subject of the preceding Canto is continued in this. ↩