value to them. The two messenger spirits, on hearing Virgil's words, dart away, and Dante compares the rapidity with which they return to him with the whole band, to the flash of a falling star. Virgil forbids Dante to stop, but tells him he may listen to the spirits as be walks on. He evidently wishes to put a cheek on any undue delay, as Dante had expended a good deal of time in his long interview with King Manfred. The spirits, however, are cruelly disappointed by Virgil's prohibiton, and having failed to detain Dante, they appeal to his sympathy by relating their violent deaths, and their tardy repentance at the last hour. They ask him to look and see if he recognises any of them, in order that he may bear tidings of them when he returns to the world. Dante confesses that their faces are all unknown, to him, but he solemnly assures them that on his return to the world he will comply with their petitions. The spirits are much moved by this assurance, and it would seem that at this point three of them step forth from the rest, and in turn make known their identity, and request Dante's good offices with their friends on earth. Of the first of these, Jacopo del Cassero of Fano, who had been Podesta of Bologna in 1296, it is beside our purpose to speak to-day. The other two are Buonconte da Monte- feltro and Pia (born of the Tolomei) of Siena.
Buonconte da Montefeltro was the eldest son of his famous father, Count Guido. He commanded the Ghibelline forces at the battle of Campaldino, in 1289, in which battle Dante, when 24 years of age, had been one of the combatants in the Guelph army, where be fought side by with Bernardino da Polenta, brother of Francesca da Rimini, and from him Dante probably first heard the story of his unhappy sister's fate. The Guelph army, under Amerigo da Narbona, consisted of the Guelph citizens, who, having been banished from Arezzo, had formed a league with the Guelph states of Florence, Bologna,, Lucca and Pistoja; while the army of Arezzo, under Buonconte da Montefeltro, represented the Ghibel-
