Commentary Par VI 10

This verse performs a perfectly balanced five-word chiasmus:

Cesare                                Iustinïano

fui                    son

e

Justinian was a ruler and is a citizen of Heaven.

This verse makes a reader mindful of that classical (and modern) poetic convention in which the dead open a colloquy with passersby through the agency of the words inscribed on their tombstones; see Stefano Carrai (Carr.2002.1), pp. 99-105.