9* s. vm. SEPT. K, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
221
said of Villani's view: "Si Iasci6 morire i
prigione." Scartazzini quotes from the 'Regis
tro dei Privilegi dell' Ospedale Nuovo di Pisa
what probably constitutes the facts :
" Lo che [sentence of stoning] Pier prevenne, pre cipitandosi a terra da un mulo su cui era tratto, sfracellandosi disperatamente le cervella. D' one fu che morisse nella chiesa di Sant' Andrea i Brattolaia."
2. Ibid., 64
La meretrice che mai dall' ospizio
Di Cesare non torse gli occhi putti.
Who or what was la meretrice in Dante'
mind ? Chaucer has had many followers in
his suggestion of Envy
Envie is lavender to the Court alway, For she ne parteth neither night ne day Out of the house of Cesar : thus saith Dant but I venture to dissent from this view. The groundwork of it is, of course, the commonly supposed (or taken-for-granted) connexion o the phrase with 1. 78 :
Del colpo che invidia le diede. I fail to see any link between them. Castel vetro (quoted by Dr. Moore) is (unless I misapprehend his meaning) evidently like
might be urged that although he considerec
Pier had not up to 1. 63 alluded to the
cause of his downfall, yet that he imme-
diately began to do so in the next line. In
the doubt, however, I claim him for my view,
which Scartazzini briefly mentions with an
ill-disguised sneer: "Al. la Corte di Roma ;
e forse la Corte romana morte commune, e delle
corti vizio ?" I am convinced that the epithet,
as put by Dante into Pier's mouth, means
nothing more nor less than the Apocalyptic
17 prjTyp TUV TTopvwv, as the accredited symbol
(whether rightly or wrongly I am not con-
cerned here) of the Roman Court. Frederick's
own Court had not the monopoly of the
intrigues which destroyed Pier, as the accu-
sation whether false or just of having
revealed the emperor's secrets to Rome
witnesses of itself. And, strange as it
appears to fling such opprobrium at the
Court which compounded his treason (sup-
posing his guilt), it is less surprising when
viewed in the light of its after consequences.
Another supposition : Was Dante venting a
long-standing personal grievance against the
Roman Court ? If so, the expression is severe,
but not more so than consigning the head of
the Roman Court ad inferos.
J. B. McGovERN. bt. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.
BATH ABBEY ARMS. At the time of com-
piling my work on the monuments and
heraldry of Wells Cathedral I was unable to
meet with any trustworthy information as
to the arms of Bath Abbey, beyond the
fact that they comprised the keys and
sword ; but the colours were very doubtful,
though I ventured to assert that the shield
was blue. The roof of Bath Abbey, after
its Jacobean and subsequent restorations,
affording no proof, the only pre-Reformation
evidence known to me was the first letter
of the inscription still remaining on the
west front of Bath Abbey, namely, "Domus
mea Domus oro'nis." There we see the
keys and sword of SS. Peter and Paul,
cut within the capital D, but of course
no colours are given. This being the case,
it will be readily understood that, having
recently had an opportunity when at Bath
of visiting the little church of St. Catherine,
about four miles from that city, my delight
at finding an early example of the arms of
Bath Abbey was almost equalled by mv
astonishment at the cursory way in which
Collinson, in his ' History of Somerset,' dis-
misses the heraldry of the old glass there.
He simply states that "the arms of the
Abbey, viz., St. Peter's key crossed with a
sword," are there. Nor is he quite correct in
iis copy of the inscription in the window ; it
should be "Orate pro anima D'ni Joh'is
Jantelow quonda Prioris hanc cancella fieri
! ecit Ao: D: MCCCCLXXXXVIII." There is a
igure of Prior Cantlow wearing his mitre,
ind with a purple robe, over which is a
}lue mantle, while from his mouth issues a
scroll inscribed "OH Dei misere mei." The
nonogram of the prior, " I. C.," is frequently
repeated.
But what is the special interest of this glass is one of the three shields of arms, of which nothing but the above brief notice s mentioned by Collinson. The first shield s Az., two keys in bend dexter, the upper >ne arg., the lower one or, interlaced by a sword in bend sinister of the second, the lilt and porael, &c., of the third : un- oubtedly the arms of the Abbey of Bath, ^he second shield has France and England quarterly ; while the third shield has the personal coat of Prior Cantlow, viz., Arg., n a fess az., between three monograms f I. C. or, a mitre of the last. These hields are particularly interesting, the lass being beyond question of the date indi- ated in it, namely, 1498, and probably the nly pre-Reformation representation of the rms of the mitred abbey of Bath, and the nly example of the arms of Prior Cantlow,
