Commentary Purg XXVIII 19-21

The sound of the forest is compared to that made by the trees in the great pine forest near Ravenna when it is stirred by the strong wind from Africa, released, at least in myth, from Aeolus's bag of the winds.  John of Serravalle, jogged by the mention of Chiassi to think of the city of Ravenna, adds a personal note to his commentary (DDP Serravalle.Purg.XXVIII.16-21): Dante, he says, is buried in the Franciscan monastery in Ravenna and he once offered prayers there for the poet's soul.

      The image of wind making melody on a natural instrument, the Aeolian harp, became a staple of Romantic literature.  In his biography of the great American musician Louis Armstrong, Laurence Bergren (Berg.1997.1, p. 261) reports that another American jazzman, Eddie Condon, commenting on the quantity and quality of jazz playing in Chicago in 1925, had this to say: 'Around midnight you could hold your instrument in the middle of the street and the air would play it.'