Commentary Par XIX 137

Seven times in the first two canticles the word barba meant, what it still means, 'beard.'  Here it means 'uncle,' as Francesco da Buti (DDP Buti.Par.XIX.136-148) informs us it does in Lombard.  Scartazzini (DDP Scartazzini.Par.XIX.137) gives its medieval Latin forms and dialectical presence in nineteenth-century Italy (Lombardy and the Tuscan Romagna).  According to Bosco/Reggio (DDP Bosco.Par.XIX.136-138) it still has that meaning in some northern dialectical Italian of the mid-twentieth century.