betokened utter discomfiture; it was given to the most distinguished knight, who had a public salary and wore conspicuous armor and a golden belt: the best troops were stationed round it, and there was frequently the hottest of the fight. . . . .
"Besides the Carroccio, the Florentine army was accompanied by a great bell, called Martinella, or Campana degli Asini, which, for thirty days before hostilities began, tolled continually day and night from the arch of Porta Santa Maria, as a public declaration of war, and, as the ancient chronicle hath it, 'for greatness of mind, that the enemy might have full time to prepare himself.' At the same time also, the Carroccio was drawn from its place in the offices of San Giovanni by the most distinguished knights and noble vassals of the republic, and conducted in state to the Mercato Nuovo, where it was placed upon the circular stone still existing, and remained there until the army took the field. Then also the Martinella was removed from its station to a wooden tower placed on another car, and with the Carroccio served to guide the troops by night and day. 'And with these two pomps, of the Carroccio and Campana,' says Malespini, 'the pride of the old citizens, our ancestors, was ruled.'"
15. Equivalent to the proverb, "Do in Rome as the Romans do."
48. Giampolo, or Ciampolo, say all the commentators; but nothing more is known of him than his name, and what he tells us here of his history.
52. It is not very clear which King Thibault is here meant, but it is probably King Thibault IV., the crusader and poet, born 1201, died 1253. His poems have been published by Lévêque de la Ravallière, under the title of Les Poésies du Roi de Navarre; and in one of his songs (Chanson 53) he makes a clerk address him as the Bons Rois Thiebaut. Dante cites him two or three times in his Volg. Eloq., and may have taken this expression from his song, as he does afterwards. Canto XXVIII. 135, lo Re joves, the Re Giovane, or Young King, from the songs of Bertrand de Born.
65. A Latian, that is to say, an Italian.
82. This Frate Gomita was a Sardinian in the employ of Nino de' Visconti, judge in the jurisdiction of Gallura, the "gentle Judge Nino" of [[../../Volume 2/Canto 8|Purg. VIII.]] 53. The frauds and peculations of the Friar brought him finally to the gallows. Gallura is the northeastern jurisdiction of the island.
88. Don Michael Zanche was Seneschal of King Enzo of Sardinia, a natural son of the Emperor Frederick II. Dante gives him the title of Don, still used in Sardinia for Signore. After the death of Enzo in prison at Bologna, in 1271, Don Michael won by fraud and flattery his widow Adelasia, and became himself Lord of Logodoro, the northwestern jurisdiction, adjoining that of Gallura.
The gossip between the Friar and the Seneschal, which is here described by Ciampolo, recalls the Vision of the
