Note 263 — Chapter XVII

It must not be supposed, from the mention of burning, that Dante was the object of religious persecution. A reference to the annals of Florence, Siena, or any of the other Italian republics, will show that this punishment was very commonly decreed by the dominant party against their political opponents. Thus Silvestro de’ Medici, on gaining the upper hand in Florence, burnt several citizens of note, with their palaces. And these atrocious cruelties were perpetrated for no imaginable crime, but simply to get rid of hated rivals. In the Revolution of 1369 we read that Bruno da Renaldini had his head cut off, senza cagione niuna.