Note 98 — TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ITALIAN.
Reading edition
This allusion to the Church of San Giovanni: “Il mio bel San Giovanni,” as Dante calls it elsewhere (Inf. xix. 17), is a fitting prelude to the canto in which St. John is to appear. Like the “laughing of the grass” in canto xxx. 77, it is a foreshadowing preface, ombrifero prefazio of what follows.