With her shall be her sister Beatrice, &c.
Stanza lxii. line 1.
This was Beatrice, the wife of Ludovico Sforza, who lost his dukedom soon after her death; a circumstance which explains the remainder of the stanza.
Viscontis’ serpents shall be held in dread,
And Moro and Sforza, &c.
Stanza lxiii. lines 1 and 2.
In the original,
E Moro e Sforza e i Viscontei Colubri.
Which Viscontei Colubri Mr. Hoole translates Calabria’s earls (Calabrian viscounts would not conie into his verse) . He was evidently confusing Calabrians with colubri (snakes), and the Viscontis with viscounts; and but for this, I should hardly have thought it necessary to state that the Viscontis were lords of Milan, and the snake was the armorial bearing of the Viscontis and the Milanese.
La vipera che i Milanesi accampa.
Dante
The viper, standard of the Milanese.
The Insubri mentioned in this stanza, I have already remarked, were the inhabitants of a district of Lombardy.
Two lines in a preceding stanza, in which there is mention of Louis’s exploits in Italy, which have been already commented on, that is to say,
S’un narrarà ch’ al Taro e nel reame
Fu a liberar da’ Galli Italia forte.
Hoole renders,
‘In Rheims and Taro’s land;
While Gauls repulsed confessed his conquering hand—’
supposing that Rheims, the capital of Champagne, was the translation of reame, that is, the kingdom; meaning the kingdom of Naples. I am induced to point out these additional
