Note 321 — CANTO VIII.

Philip Argenti: A Florentine gentleman related to the great family of the Adimari, and a contemporary of Dante’s. Boccaccio in his commentary describes him as a cavalier, very rich, and so ostentatious that he once shod his horse with silver, whence his surname. In the Decameron (ix. 8) he is introduced as violently assaulting—tearing out his hair and dragging him in the mire—the victim of a practical joke played by the Ciacco of Canto vi. Some, without reason, suppose that Dante shows such severity to him because he was a Black, and so a political opponent of his own.