l fatten upon the past:
For the stateliest building man can raise
Is the Ivy's food at last.
Creeping on, where time has been,
A rare old plant is the Ivy Green.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In the 'Paradiso' (canto xv.) he introduces his
great-great-grandfather Cacciaguida, who tells of himself that he
followed the Emperor Conrad to fight against the Mohammedans, was made a
knight by him, and was slain in the war.

[2] From the letter already referred to, cited by Lionardo Bruni.

[3] Charles II. of Naples was the cousin of Philip III., the Bold, of
France, the father of Charles of Valois; and in 1290 Charles of Valois
had married his daughter.

[4] These decrees and the other public documents relating to Dante are
to be found in various publications. They have all been collected and
edited by Professor George R. Carpenter, in the tenth and eleventh
Annual Reports of the Dante Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1891,
1892.

[5] This decree was pronounced in a General Council of the Commune by
the Vicar of King Robert of Naples, into whose hands the Florentines had
given themselves in 1313 for a term of five years,--extended afterwards
to eight,--with the hope that by his authority order might be preserved
within the city.

[6] Among the letters ascribed to Dante is one, much noted, in reply to
a letter from a friend in Florence, in regard to terms of absolution on
which he might secure his re-admission to Florence. It is of very
doubtful authenticity. It has no external evidence to support it, and
the internal evidence of its rhetorical form and sentimental tone is all
against it. It belongs in the same class with the famous letter of Fra
Ilario, and like that, seems not unlikely to have been an invention of
Boccaccio's.

[7] _Literally_, "who by the sweetness of its glory put exile behind our
back."

[8] The sun,--a planet according to the Ptolemaic astronomy.

[9] It was a common belief that the spring was the season of the
creation.

[10] These three beasts typify the division of sins into those of
incontinence, of violence, and of fraud.

[11] Who he was and What should result.

[12] In Limbo, neither in hell nor in heaven.

[13] The heaven of the Moon, the nearest to Earth of the nine concentric
Heavens.

[14] The type of illuminating grace.

[15] It was Galahaut who, in the Romance, prevailed on Guinevere to give
a kiss to Lancelot.

[16] When it is sunrise at Jerusal