Through the Casentino with Hints for the Traveller

by Lina Eckenstein

Villani tells us that this Count Guido caused a large part of the Palazzo Vecchio to be rebuilt on the plan of his palace at Poppi. Perhaps this act caused his portrait to be introduced in a fresco of the Capella degli Spagnuoli, one of the greatest monuments of fourteenth-century art. The Count, who stands as a beardless youth on the staircase at Poppi, is here represented in manhood. He is seen in profile, forming one of a group which includes Cimabue, Boccaccio, Petrarch and Laura.

The wife of this Count Guido was Gherardesca, the daughter of Count Ugolino, who with his sons died of starvation at Pisa. The description of their sufferings is among the most terrible of the Divine Comedy. Several letters have recently come to light addressed by Gherardesca to Margaret, the consort of the Emperor, and, partly because these letters are preserved with the letters of Dante, partly because of certain peculiarities in their style, the opinion has been advanced that they were drafted by Dante. One of them is of the year 1311 and is dated from Poppi.

Among the Novelle, or short stories, which Sacchetti put into writing in the fourteenth century, one (nr. 179) tells what befell one day when Countess Gherardesca of Poppi, and Countess Manessa of Pratovecchio, were crossing Campaldino together. It is intended to illustrate the sharp tongue and ready wit of the female sex. Gherardesca was a proud lady, and she attracted her companion’s attention to the promising state of the harvest. With reference to the defeat of the Ghibellines there, among whom Buonconte, Manessa’s father, had fought, she remarked that the corn no doubt stood so high in consequence of the blood that had been spilt there. But Manessa met her in the same spirit. Alluding to the death by starvation of Ugolino, the father of Gherardesca, she replied that they would no doubt enjoy a fine harvest provided they did not die of starvation before it was ripe. Gherardesca pretended not to understand, and so they continued their walk together in peace.

While Dante’s relations with the owner of Poppi leave room for conjecture, his connection with the Counts of Romena rests on a firm foundation. The stronghold of Romena, judging by the position and extent of its ruins, was the most imposing castle of the Casentino.

There was a Count Alessandro of Romena who was a leader of the Guelfs of Tuscany against the Ghibellines in 1288. He afterwards joined the Bianchi and was expelled from Florence. Later we find him captain of the exiles at Arezzo. He led the attack on Florence which ensued, and died shortly afterwards. Dante then addressed a letter of condolence to his nephews, the Counts Oberto and Guido of Romena, in which he deplored the death of one who had such greatness of soul, and added much to his praise. He would have come to the funeral but that, being an exile, he was deprived of the necessary horses and arms.

The idea has been accepted by some scholars and rejected by others that this Count Alessandro was identical with the Count of Romena of the same name, who, with Guido and another brother, employed the forger Adamo of Brescia to coin false florins at Romena. The reader of Dante is familiar with the figure of Adamo, whom the poet found in Hell, suffering from dropsy and terrible thirst. He told him how he was burnt alive for his acts at Romena, and how he longed for the sight of those who employed him—one of the counts, he has heard, is already in Hell. Falsified florins were discovered in 1281; a cairn on the road above Romena is popularly held to mark the spot where Adamo was burnt. It is locally known as the “Maccia del Uomo Morto,” and travellers not many years back were wont to throw a stone on it in passing. The genealogy of the owners of Romena, however, remains a matter of dispute. On the face of it, it seems improbable that Dante thought well of the abettor of a forger, or relegated a man he admired to Hell. Still these were stirring times of changing sympathies, and though the view has been advanced that there were two Counts Alessandro, uncle and nephew, the evidence brought forward by Passerini, who argues that there was but one, has never been conclusively disproved.

Above Romena, at the head of the valley, lie the ruins of Porciano, and the expression “Capo d’Arno,” if taken literally, would apply to it. But Dante’s relation with its counts is based on legend only. They were a set of lawless, changeful men. There was a Count Guido of Porciano who was condemned in 1282 by the city of Florence to pay five thousand lire for murder, theft and arson. He had eight sons, and several of them were fined in 1291 for waylaying and robbing a merchant from Ancona. In 1311 five of the brothers received the ambassadors of the Emperor at San Godenzo and swore fealty to the Imperial cause, but four of them afterwards deserted it. If Dante thought favourably of those of Porciano for their Imperial sympathies, it cannot have lasted. For in describing the sources of the Arno in the Comedy he says that the river takes its rise among “foul hogs more worthy of galls than of any food made for the use of man,” with obvious reference to the meaning of the word porci as contained in the place-name Porciano.

A tradition is preserved, according to which the poet was kept prisoner at Porciano, possibly after the battle of Campaldino. An anecdote intended to illustrate his ready wit is localised here. The poet, we are told, had left the castle and was walking down the hill when he met some men from Florence, who were sent to take him into custody. They did not recognise him, and asked if Dante were at Porciano, and he replied, “He was there while I was!”

There seemed no end to the stories associated with Dante which were localised in this neighbourhood. Palmieri, a writer of the early fifteenth century, described an incident, which he says befell Dante on Campaldino. The poet and the triumphant Guelfs after the battle pursued the enemy as far as Bibbiena and beyond it, and on the third day they returned to look for their friends and to bury the dead. Dante found a friend, who either “was not quite dead or else suddenly revived,” and who proceeded to describe what he had seen during these days of Hell and Purgatory, words through which the whole plan of the Comedy was revealed to Dante. The account contains expressions which recall Dante’s description, still it is sufficiently distinct. It rambles on over about half a dozen pages in print without definite plan or purpose.

It was with a feeling of regret that we left Poppi, which played so important a part in the history of the district. We left it early one morning and crossed Campaldino, now, as six hundred years ago, green with sprouting corn. Beyond it the driving road over the Consuma begins its steady ascent along a mountain spur which is formed by the Arno and its tributary the Solano. The old road branched off, following the course of the Solano, and up this we went to explore.