Canto XXXIII Notes: Mandelbaum
13-75.) Ugolino della Gherdesca (born in the first decades of the 13th century), Count of Donoratico, a Ghibelline, was exiled from the Ghibelline city of Pisa in 1275 for plotting. He returned a year later with the help of the Florentine Guelphs and regained his wealth and position. In 1284 he became chief magistrate of Pisa after its defeat in the war against Genoa. To save Pisa from Guelph threats, he negotiated with the cities of Florence and Lucca and ceded three castles to them, a politic action that his enemies regarded as a betrayal.
In 1285 Ugolino's grandson, the Guelph Nino Visconti, was called to share the office of chief magistrate with his Ghibelline grandfather. But the two men fell to feuding and were forced out of office in 1288. At this point Dante seems to follow a version of events that would have Ugolino, who was then outside Pisa, returning to the city in response to the invitation of the Ghibelline Archbishop Ruggieri, who promised Ugolino reconciliation with those who had forced him out of office. But the Archbishop betrayed Ugolino, imprisoning him together with his sons Gaddo and Uguiccione and his grandsons Nino (nicknamed "Brigata"--and not to be confused with the other Nino above) and Anselm. For nine months they were kept in the tower of the Gualandi, and in March 1289 the Archbishop ordered the tower locked up and the keys thrown into the river.
22.) The tower of the Gualandi, which served as a prison through 1318, was called the Eagles' Tower because the commune kept its eagles there when they were changing plumage.
28-36.) In Ugolino's dream, "this man" is Archbishop Ruggieri, who, with the Ghibelline families named in line 33, hunts down and kills Ugolino and his sons--the "wolf" and the "whelps" of line 29.
30.) Mount San Giuliano lies between Pisa and Lucca.
69.) See Matt. 27:46, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"
75.) Both the Italian and this translation of line 75 allow the possibility that Ugolino cannibalized his children; but neither denies unequivocally for that as against the less horrifying reading.
79-80.) Just as northern France was the land of oil and Provence the land of oc, Italy is "that fair land where si"--its word for "yes"--"is heard."
82.) Capara and Gorgona, which belonged to Pisa, are two islands northeast of Corsica along a horizontal sight line extending from the mouth of the Arno.
91.) They passed into the third subdivision of Cocytus: Ptolomea (124), most probably named after Ptolemy, governor of Jericho, who killed Simon, his father-in-law and high priest, and two of his sons while they were dining with him (see I Maccabees 16:11-17, in the Catholic Bible). In Ptolomea, those who have betrayed their guests are punished. It is less likely that Ptolomea is named for Ptolemy XII of Egypt (51-47 B.C.), who was probably responsible for the murder of Pompey.
103-105.) Since the sun's heat was thought to cause wind, Dante wonders why he feels wind in this cold place.
118-120.) Fra Alberigo was a member of the Guelph Manfredi family of Faenza. In 1267 he joined the Jovial Friars (see XXII, 103-108, and note). He killed his relative Manfredo and Manfredo's son during a banquet in his house, signaling his assassins with an order to bring in the fruit. Fra Alberigo is saying that he was punished more severely that he deserved (a date is more valuable than a fig).
126.) Atropos, one of the three fates, cut the threads at the moment of someone's death.
137.) Branca Doria, member of the famous Ghibelline family of Genoa, murdered his father-in-law, Michele Zanche--whom Dante encountered among the barrators in Canto XXIII--during a banquet (see XXII, 88, and note). His cohort in this assassination was "a kinsman" of his (145-146).
142-146.) Even before the murdered Michele Zanche reached his place among those damned in the Fifth Pouch of Malebolge, a demon entered the body of his murderer, Branca Doria. The demon expelled Doria's soul, flinging it down to Cocytus. Thus Doria's soulless body still lives on earth; but, in a piece of mordant comic invention, his soul is already in Hell. What is true of his body and soul is also true of his "kinsman, who had done the treachery together with him," and of others in Ptolomea (124-126).
154.) That is, Fra Alberigo.
155.) That is, Branca Doria.