Note 7 — CANTO XXXII.

The harlot and the giant stand respectively for the Pope (both Boniface VIII. and him successor Clement V.) and the kings of France, especially Philip the Fair. The turning of the eyes of the harlot upon Dante seems to signify the dealings of Boniface with the Italians, which awakened the jealousy of Philip; and the dragging of the car, transformed into a monster, through the wood, so far as to hide it from the poet, may be taken as typifying the removal of the seat of the Papacy from Rome to Avignon, in 1305.