• The Neri were banished from Pistoia in 1301; the Bianchi, from Florence in 1302. ↩
• This vapor or lightning flash from Val di Magra is the Marquis Malaspini, and the “turbid clouds” are the banished Neri of Pistoia, whom he is to gather about him to defeat the Bianchi at Campo Piceno, the old battlefield of Catiline. As Dante was of the Bianchi party, this prophecy of impending disaster and overthrow could only give him pain. See note 95 . ↩
• The subject of the preceding Canto is continued in this. ↩