Thank you, Luca. I should have looked at the orginal Italian Canto
LXXII, but Pound , for some odd reason, did write him, Ezalino in the
English translation.
    Burckhardt, the Basel historian, says that Ezzelino was someone unique
in the Middle Ages because up to his time there had always been real or
pretended inheritance claims to conquests an usurpations, but in Ezzelino's
case "for the first time the attempt was openly made to found a throne by
wholesale murder and endless barbarities, by the adoption, in short, of any
means with a view to nothing but the end pursued." He is then the most
important character in "Cento Novelle Antiche" ed. 1525. But did the
Florentines understand the Ghibelline case?
    "E 'l caso ghibellin ben seppe il fiorentino." Canto LXXII

CDM