e think Dante was ashamed to speak of these ancestors, from the
lowness of their origin; others that he did not choose to make them a
boast, for the height of it. I suspect, with Lombardi, from his general
character, and from the willingness he has avowed to make such boasts
(see the opening of canto xvi., Paradise, in the original), that while
he claimed for them a descent from the Romans (see Inferno, canto
xv. 73, &c.), he knew them to be] poor in fortune, perhaps of humble
condition. What follows, in the text of our abstract, about the purity
of the old Florentine blood, even in the veins of the humblest mechanic,
may seem to intimate some corroboration of this; and is a curious
specimen of republican pride and scorn. This horror of one's neighbours
is neither good Christianity, nor surely any very good omen of that
Italian union, of which "Young Italy" wishes to think Dante such a
harbinger.

All this too, observe, is said in the presence of a vision of Christ on
the Cross!]

[Footnote 18: The _Column, Verrey_ (vair, variegated, checkered with
argent and azure), and the _Balls_ or (Palle d'oro), were arms of old
families. I do not trouble the reader with notes upon mere family-names,
of which nothing else is recorded.]

[Footnote 19: An allusion, apparently acquiescent, to the superstitious
popular opinion that the peace of Florence was bound up with the statue
of Mars on the old bridge, at the base of which Buondelmonte was slain.

With this Buondelmonte the dissensions in Florence were supposed to have
first begun. Macchiavelli's account of him is, that he was about to
marry a young lady of the Amidei family, when a widow of one of the
Donati, who had designed her own daughter for him, contrived that
he should see her; the consequence of which was, that he broke his
engagement, and was assassinated. _Historie Fiorentine_, lib. ii.]

[Footnote 20:

"Tu lascerai ogni cosa diletta
Piu caramente; e questo e quello strale
Che l'arco de l'esilio pria saetta.

Tu proverai si come sa di sale
Lo pane altrui, e com'e duro calle
Lo scendere e 'l salir per l'altrui scale.

E quel che piu ti gravera le spalle,
Sara la compagnia malvagia e scempia
Con la qual tu cadrai in questa valle:

Che tutta ingrata, tutta matta ed empia
Si fara contra te: ma poco appresso
Ella, non tu, n'avra rossa la tempia.

Di sua bestialitate il suo processo
Fara la pruova, si ch' a te fia bello
Averti f