[1] Dante, Inferno, Canto xxii.

[2] Dante, Paradiso, xi. 41.

[3] The Flagellant Brotherhood originated in Perugia in 1259, and spread like wildfire through Tuscany and Umbria to Rome.

[4] 'Their Highnesses the Baglioni had the livery which Count Jacomo, son of NiccolÒ Piccinino, gave them, ... and for their arms they bore a shield azure traversed in the middle by a bar of gold, and above for crest a griffin's head, and behind this hung down a serpent's tail.'—Matarazzo, The Chronicles of Perugia.

[5] The mediaeval Italian apparently believed that he averted the visit of Death by blocking up the door by which the dead body was carried out, since Death was supposed to enter a house by the door through which he had already passed. But Mr. Markino gave me an interesting variant of the superstition. In Japan Doors for the Dead were used because the human body was considered not clean in comparison with the Gods; and especially after death, when the human body is only dust, it could not be allowed to pass where the Gods might come—through the chief doors of a house.

[6] I adhere to the Greek names because this is a digression into Arcadia.

[7] Mr. W. Heywood tells us in his admirable book, Palio and Ponte, that 'from the beginning of the seventeenth century the Feast of Our Lady of Provenzano became well-nigh the principal holiday of the Sienese year. It was celebrated on the 2nd of July, the day of the visitation of the Blessed Virgin.' The Palio was not actually presented to the victorious contrada, but the silver basin which accompanied it, or its equivalent in money. 'Not unfrequently they petitioned the Governor to permit the race to be run anew, by the other contrade, on the day after the Festival of our Lady of August, offering as a prize the silver basin which they had themselves won.... By degrees this practice grew to be so common that before the end of the eighteenth century the Palio of the 16th August had become as regular an event as that of July.'

[8] The Alfieri are pages in the mediaeval sense. Siena is the only town in Italy which still makes a study of the mediaeval sport of banner-tossing.

[9] Some of the horses which took part in the race were sorry nags, but the contrada of the Porcupine had a really good animal.

[10] Dante, Inferno, Canto xxix. 17.

[11] This Annunciation is claimed to be by Sebastiano Mainardi, the friend and pupil of Ghirlandaio, with whom he worked while he was engaged on the Chapel of the Holy Fina. Mainardi, who later married Ghirlandaio's sister, and Vincenzo di B. Tamagni, a pupil of Raphael, were the only artists born in San Gimignano.

[12] But I do not doubt the wisdom of the Government, for our two soldier coachmen only voiced the general opinion when they told us that the peasants of the neighbourhood had been impoverished under the rule of the monks, but that they make an ample livelihood under the rule of the state.

[13] J. A. Symonds.

[14] Dante, Paradise, xvi. 73.

[15] 'It is by some pretended that these subterranean passages form part of the labyrinth of Porsena, but this opinion has no foundation. They are much more probably connected with the system of sewerage, and the subterranean chambers may have been either cellars to houses or favissae to temples.'—Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, vol. ii.

[16] Livy, Book xxi.

[17] Dante, Purgatory, xi. 93.

[18] Laura M'Cracken, Gubbio Past and Present.

[19] 'Their origin has been variously assigned to the twelfth and the fourteenth century. If, as seems probable, they were designed by Gattapone, they may be placed in the middle of the fourteenth century about the time of the erection of the two municipal palaces.'

Laura M'Cracken, Gubbio Past and Present.

[20] Dante, Inferno, v. 118.

[21] Gregorovius, Rome in the Middle Ages.

[22] Their identity is disputed.

[23] Dante, Purgatory, xxviii. 40.

[24] Dante, Inferno, iv. 6.

[25] 'The energetic Lambert had made a genuine peace with Rome, where he had gloriously restored the Imperial power. The Pope, though compelled by necessity, had with equal sincerity striven to secure Lambert in the Imperium. Freed from all foreign influence, it seemed now for the first time possible to form an independent kingdom within the Italian frontier.'—Gregorovius, Rome in the Middle Ages.

[26] 'This waterfall is in its present form wholly artificial. It was first formed by M'. Curius Dentatus, who opened an artificial channel for the waters of the Velinus, and thus carried off a considerable portion of the Lacus Velinus, which previously occupied a great part of the valley below Reate.'—Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography.

[27] Purgatory, Canto xxiii., Cary's Translation.

[28] J. A. Symonds, Italian Studies.

[29] Gregorovius, Rome in the Middle Ages.