of Clonfert, born in 484, died in 577 is reported to have made a voyage (the “Navigation of Saint Brandan”) in search of the terrestrial paradise and to have landed with his companions on a miraculous island in the Atlantic.
19
In the ninth book of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival (lines 1155–1164), the hermit says to the knight: “They who stood neutral while Lucifer and the Trinity were fighting, even all those angels, noble and of high estate, were made to come down to earth, to guard this very stone [the Holy Grail]; yet the stone remained pure. Nor do I know whether God at last granted them pardon or doomed them to more grievous punishment.”
20
Inferno, iii, 39–64.
21
Inferno, xxxiv, 70–81.
22
Of. the Italian and French proverbs: “II diavolo, quand’ è vecchio, si fa romito”; “Quand le diable devient vieux il se fait ermite.”
23
Inferno, xxxiv, 18. In the Inferno, it is the Giants, not the Titans, who appear as warders of the Ninth Circle of Hell (Inf. xxxi).
24
From the data given by Dante in Canto xxxiv of the Inferno, Lucifer’s height has been estimated at about 2,500 feet.
25
The Gospel of Nicodemus is one of the so-called “apocryphal writings”.
26
Inferno, xxi, 31–36.
27
Inferno, xvii, 1–27.
28
Paradise Lost, i, 423–431.
29
Inferno, xxxiii, 118–147.
30
Matthew xii, 24; Luke xi, 15. Also, Mark iii, 22.
31
Inferno, xxxiv, 28.
32
Matthew iv, 3.
33
Convito (Convivio) iii, 13.
34
Inferno, xxvii, 123.
35
Jean Bodin was one of the writers who sought to revive the prosecution of witches in the latter half of the sixteenth century. His Daemonomania was published in 1579.
36
Perhaps the reference is to Matthew x, 28, or to xii, 24–26.
