Commentary Par XI 99

The word archimandrita, a word formed out of a Greek ecclesiastical term meaning 'chief shepherd' (from arch + mandra ['sheepfold']), and thus the head of more than one monastic community, a hapax in the poem (but which appears, denoting the apostle Peter, in Mon.III.ix.17; it also is present, referring to the pope, in Epist.XI.13).  This word is not, as some might expect, a Dantean coinage, but may have been found by him in the Magnae derivationes of Uguccione da Pisa, as Grandgent (DDP Grandgent.Par.XI.97-99) seems to have been the first commentator to suggest.