Note 648 — CANTO XXIV.

Every Bianco, etc.: The Blacks, according to Villani (viii. 45), were driven from Pistoia in May 1301. They took refuge in Florence, where their party, in the following November under the protection of Charles of Valois, finally gained the upper hand, and began to persecute and expel the Whites, among whom was Dante. Mars, the god of war, or, more probably, the planet of war, draws a vapour from the valley of the Magra, a small stream which flows into the Mediterranean on the northern confine of Tuscany. This vapour is said to signify Moroello Malaspina, a noble of that district and an active leader of the Blacks, who here figure as murky clouds. The Campo Piceno is the country west of Pistoia. There Moroello bursts on his foes like a lightning-flash out of its cloud. This seems to refer to a pitched battle that should have happened soon after the Blacks recovered their strength; but the chroniclers tell of none such, though some of the commentators do. The fortress of Seravalle was taken from the Pistoiese, it is true, in 1302, and Moroello is said to have been the leader of the force which starved it into submission. He was certainly present at the great siege of Pistoia in 1305, when the citizens suffered the last rigours of famine.—This prophecy by Fucci recalls those by Farinata and Ciacco.