NOTES. XCV 



( 443 ) p. 287. Alonso de Ercilla has imitated the passage of Garcilaso in 

 the Araucana : " Climas passe, mude constelaciones ;" see Kosmos, Bd. ii. 

 S. 121, Anm. 62 (Engl. ed. Vol. ii. note 62). 



( w ) p. 289. Pet. Mart. Ocean. Dec. I. lib. ix. p. 96; Examen crit. 

 T. iv. p. 221 and 317. 



O p. 289. Acosta, Hist, natural de las Indias, lib. i. cap. 2 ; Rigaud, 

 Account of Harriot's Astron. Papers, 1833, p. 37- 



C 146 ) p. 289. Pigafetta, Primo Viaggio intorno al Globo terracqueo, pubbl. 

 da C. Amoretti, 1800, p. 46 ; Ramusio, Vol. i. p. 355 c ; Petr. Mart. Ocean. 

 Dec. III. lib. i. p. 217. (From the events to which Anghiera refers, Dec. II. 

 ib. x. p. 204, and Dec. III. lib. x. p. 232, the passage of the Oceanica 

 which speaks of the Magellanic clouds must have been written between 1514 

 and 1516.) Andrea Corsali (Ramusio, Vol. i. p. 177) also describes in a let- 

 ter to Giuliano de Medici the movement of translation of " due nugolette di 

 ragionevol grandezza." The star which he represents between Nubecula 

 major and minor appears to me to be ft Hydrse (Examen crit. T. v. p. 234 

 238). Respecting Petrus Theodor of Emden and Houtman, the pupil of the 

 mathematician Plancius, see an historical article by Olbers, in Schumacher's 

 Jahrbuch fiir 1840, S. 249. 



C 247 ) p. 291. Compare the researches of Delambre and Encke with Ideler, 

 Ursprung der Sternnamen, S. xlix. 263 and 277 ; also my Examen crit. 

 T. iv. p. 319324 ; T. v. p. 1719, 30 and 230234. 



O p. 291. Plin. ii. 70; Ideler, Sternnamen, S. 260 and 295. 



( 449 ) p. 292. I have attempted in another place to dispel the doubts 

 which several distinguished commentators of Dante have expressed in modern 

 times respecting the " quattro stelle." To take this problem in all its com- 

 pleteness, we must compare the passage, " lo mi volsi," &c. (Purgat. I. v. 

 2224) with other passages : Purg. I. v. 37; VIII. v. 8593; XXIX. 

 v. 121: XXX. v. 97; XXXT. v. 106; and Inf. XXVI. v. 117 and 127. 

 The Milanese astronomer, De Cesaris, considers the three " facelle" (" Di 

 che '1 polo di qua tutto quanto arde," and which set when the four stars of 

 the Cross rise,) to be Canopus, Achernar and Fomalhant. I have attempted 

 to solve the difficulties by the following considerations : " Le mysticisme 

 philosophique et religieux qui penetre et vivifie 1'immense composition dn 

 Dante, assigne a tous les objets, a cote de leur existence reelle ou materielle, 

 une existence ideale. C'est comme deux moudes, dont 1'un est le reflet de 

 1'autre. Le groupe des quatres etoiles represente, dans 1'ordre moral, les 

 vertus cardinales, la prudence, la justice, la force et la temperance ; elles 



