Abstract
“Dante’s Florence” (here and more expansively on the Web with images of the plaques and places at https://www.florin.ms/DanteFlorence.html, each numbered in bold in that guide and in this book) has interacting layers, between the historical one of columns, churches, towers, and palaces in stone and the flesh and blood people who lived among them; then Dante’s writings, themselves hypertexts, written on parchment, next printed on paper, or now electronically on the Web, layering his virtualized vision back upon flesh and blood and stone reality, mapping it. We can peel back its layers in a “theatre of memory”, in this case to Dante’s time, before the Renaissance, before the Medici, from 1265 to 1302, from his birth to his exile. This is the cityscape of his Vita nova and it will be what he nostalgically remembers of his neighborhood in his dream vision in exile, the Commedia, particularly in Paradiso XV–XVI.
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Notes
- 1.
Kenelm Foster, OP, “Dante and Two Friars: Paradiso XI–XII”, New Blackfriars, 66 (1985), 480–496. The manuscript is BL Egerton 943, illuminated early and copiously by the “Master of the Paduan Antiphoners” who also illuminates Francesco da Barberino’s BRicc 1538, dated 1313, with whom it seems to be connected, though when Francesco returns from exile to Florence and has his officina produce the “Danti del Cento” he will be generally sparing of illuminations.
- 2.
With thanks to Maria Novella Fioretta Pucci, Giacomo Pucci, Eugenio Giani, †Richard Mac Cracken, Alberto Casciani, Daniel-Claudiu Dumitrescu, Giuliano Benvenuti, Enrico Giannini, Renato Stopani, †Maria Grazia Beverini Del Santo, Domenico Savini, Massimo Tosi, Elena Giannarelli, Assunta D’Aloi, Spencer Abruzzese, Paolo Ciampi. https://www.florin.ms/DanteFlorence.html hypertexts to Dante’s Vita nova and Commedia, the marble plaques Florence’s Comune decided in 1900 to place on buildings Dante mentioned, publications concerning them, Victorian photographs and engravings, discussions in Augustus Hare’s Florence, Susan and Joanna Horner’s Walks in Florence, and much else. I use La Commedìa: Testo critico secondo i più antichi manoscritti fiorentini, ed. Antonio Lanza, based on the “Danti del Cento“ manuscripts of Francesco da Barberino’s workshop. The English translations are modernized from the J.A. Carlyle, Thomas Okey, P.H. Wicksteed, London: J.M. Dent, 1938, Temple Classics edition.
- 3.
Archivio dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, I.3.6, Necrologia Santa Reparata, for the members of the Compagnia de Laudesi di Orsanmichele, “Ser Burnetto f. Bonaccorsi”, fol.3v.
- 4.
Leonardi Bruni, Della vita studi e costumi di Dante, p. 2: “Il padre suo Aldighieri perde’ nella sua puerizia: nientedimanco, confortato da’ propinqui e da Brunetto Latini, valentissimo uomo secondo quel tempo, non solamente a litteratura, ma agli altri studi liberali si diede, niente lasciando a dietro che appartenga a fa l’uomo eccellente.”
- 5.
JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales: Brunetto Latino and Dante Alighieri, pp. 315–427; Robert Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze, trans. Giovanni Battista Klein.
- 6.
Convivio, IV.24, trans. Richard H. Lansing, Convivio IV, Società Dantesca Italiana edition in Italian, https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/text/library/the-convivio/book-02/#01
- 7.
Opere di Brunetto Latino, Maestro di Dante Alighieri, ed. JB Holloway, vol. I, https://www.florin.ms/OpereBrunettoLatino.html
- 8.
Opere di Brunetto Latino, vol. II, Tesoro, fol. 72r.
- 9.
Farid Mahdavi, review of Jonathan M. Bloom, Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World, in The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2003, discusses the Islamic world’s greater book production technology in using multiple scribes. Brunetto copies this first from Seville in his exile in Arras, resulting in multiple copies of Li Livres dou Tresor, then the method is copied in turn by him and by his student Francesco da Barberino in Florence which results in the plethora of Tuscan manuscripts of both the Tesoro and the Commedia.
- 10.
“Italy is a democratic Republic founded on labor”, etc.: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Italy_2012.pdf?lang=en
- 11.
- 12.
Giovanni Villani, Cronica, I.i.xlii, pp. 60–61.
- 13.
JB Holloway, The Pilgrim and the Book: A Study of Dante, Langland and Chaucer, pp. 147–150; Mattias Lundberg, Tonus Peregrinus: The History of a Psalm Tone; Dunstan J. Tucker, O.S.B., “‘In Exitu Israel de Aegypto’: The Divine Comedy in The Light of the Easter Liturgy”, Benedictine Review 11:1 (1960) 43–61; Robert Hollander, “Purgatorio II: Cato’s Rebuke and Dante’s scoglio”, Italica 52 (1975) 348–363.
- 14.
Sperello di Serego Alighieri (Dante’s descendant) and Massimo Capaccioli, The Sun and the Other Stars of Dante Alighieri: A Cosmographic Journey through the Divina Commedia, passim, note that Dante uses 1301’s positioning of the planets. He carries the 1300 Jubilee over to the 1301 March coincidence of the dating of Creation, Annunciation, Crucifixion.
- 15.
Fr Dunstan Tucker, OSB, “Dante’s Reconciliation in the Purgatorio,” American Benedictine Review 20 (1969), 75–92; JB Holloway, The Pilgrim and the Book: A Study of Dante, Langland and Chaucer.
- 16.
Renato Stopani, Firenze prima di Arnolfo.
- 17.
John Demaray, The Invention of Dante’s Commedia.
- 18.
Necrologia, Archivio, Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, I.3.6, fol. 41r: “M.C.C.C. Guido. f. dni. Cavalcantis. de Cavalcantis”.
- 19.
Enrica Neri Lusanna, “Precisazioni sul bassorilievo arnolfiano del Victoria and Albert Museum”, Studi di storia dell’arte nel centenario di Mario Salmi, I (1992), pp. 404–405, fig. 6, considers it could have been from the tomb of Brunetto Latino.
- 20.
Brunetto Latini, Il Tesoro, ed. Luigi Carrer, I.vi.12, p. 129.
- 21.
French Boccaccio miniatures show the scene among the tombs outside Santa Reparata Guido Cavalcanti leaps over in Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, VI.9. BNF 5070, fol. 234v: Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, VI.ix; BNF italien 63, fol. 203v,
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84268111/f428.item. See also Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, IV.9. BArsenal 5070, fol. 234v, with its excellent topography of the Piazza.
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b7100018t/f482.item.r=ms%205070%20ms%205070
The irony is that both Betto Brunelleschi and Guido Cavalcanti will be buried among these tombs, Archivio Santa Maria del Fiore, I.3.6.
- 22.
This is Betto Brunelleschi, partner of Corso Donati, both violent Black Guelfs. “Burnecto de Brunelleschi” is listed in the Compagnia dei Laudesi di Orsanmichele Necrologia, Archive, Santa Maria del Fiore, I.3.6.
- 23.
Academia Bessarion 2, 8/12/2020, on Florence and the Seven Acts of Mercy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wck3hiR-P-Y&t=17s
- 24.
The doctrine of the “Dormition of the Virgin”, still held in the Orthodox Greek Church, came to be abandoned in the Latin Roman Catholic Church in favor of the Assumption of the Virgin. One can see Orcagna’s sculpture of it in the Orsanmichele Tabernacle, Fra Angelico’s painting in the Museo San Marco, and the Master of the Dominican Effigies’ miniature, as well as the Arnolfo di Cambio sculpture: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Illuminated_manuscripts_by_Master_of_the_Dominican_Effigies#/media/File:Maestro_delle_effigi_domenicane,_antifonario_con_assunta_in_iniziale_V,_1340-45_ca._%28impruneta,_museo_ecclesiastico%29_03.jpg
- 25.
Folco Portinari’s Last Will and Testament paraphrased: In the name of God, Amen, and in the year of his Incarnation 1287, on the fifteenth of January. Folco, son of the late Ricoveri Portinari, of the congregation of Saint Margaret of Florence, by the grace of God, sound of mind and body, willing, while he is still bodily capable and his mental faculties sound, to plan for the event of his death has this testament written concerning the disposal of his goods and possessions in his Last Will. First that he humbly recommends his soul to the living and true God, that his body be buried in the chapel of Santa Maria Nuova Hospital which he has recently constructed and he orders his heirs to pay the necessary funeral expenses. He then in reparation to God, Lord Jesus Christ, and the blessed Virgin Mary his Mother for his sins and those of his relatives endows the hospital with its chapel or church, which he has just built, outside the wall of the city of Florence, the church of Saint Egidius, for the infirm poor not only with corporal food but also spiritual, prayer being offered daily for them. He asks his heirs to continue and expand this work. He asks that the debts recorded in the two signed and sealed books and in other ledgers be paid. He then lists donations to Franciscan, Dominican, Carmelite, and Servite friaries and their hospitals. He also lists donations to nuns’ convents. He lists a donation for each beggar in Florence. He names Grifo Assalti and Salto Segne, who seem to be Portinari relatives involved with familial properties in the San Procolo area. He leaves his wife Celia, besides her dowry, all his woollen, linen, and silk clothing and land, arranging its sale, etc. His daughters are Vanna, Fia, Margarita, and Castora who are left dowries for when they marry. If they die before they marry this will be divided among the others. As for his daughter Bice, the wife of Simone de’ Bardi, he leaves fifty florins, the same as the dowry he gave her when she married and with which she is to be content. He disposes and wills that his natural sister Nuta have food and lodging. He makes it very clear that female descendants are not to inherit. Ulivero Torrigiani and Bindo Cerchi seem to be executors of the Will, Manetto, Ricovero, Pigello, Gherardo and Jacobo are his sons, only the first two inheriting. He has the Will witnessed by Franciscans at the church of Saint Egidius outside the walls of Florence. It is signed by the imperial notary Tedaldus son of the late Orlando Rustichelli.
- 26.
Maria Grazia Beverini Del Santo, Piccarda Donati nella storia del Monastero di Monticelli.
- 27.
11. Via della Oche, 20 red (in Florence residences have street numbers in black, shop numbers in red), on your right, on the remains of the Visdomini tower, Dante’s lines mentioning their little church, now in the shadow of the great Duomo.
- 28.
12. Via delle Oche, 19, on your left, where the Adimari palace stood. Boccaccio degli Adimari, listed in the Santa Reparata Necrologia, Archivio dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, I.3.6, sacked Dante’s house when Dante was declared an exile.
- 29.
13. Via Speziali, 11 red, to find on your right a plaque where the Alighieri palace once stood. This street becomes the Corso, so named from the race that was run down it.
- 30.
14. Via del Corso, 31, red, on the remains of the Donati Tower. Actually this is a different branch of the Donati family, the one into which Dante married, but the plaque repeats Dante’s comment about Corso Donati’s violent death at the hands of the Florentines in San Salvi while he was fleeing from the other Donati Tower in 9. Piazza San Piero Maggiore.
- 31.
Archive, Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, I.3.6, fol. 4r, as members of Orsanmichele’s Compagnia dei Laudesi.
- 32.
Richard Mac Cracken, The Dedication Inscription of the Palazzo del Podestà in Florence.
- 33.
Archivio vescovile, Fiesole, 1322, cc. lxxvi–lxxxi: “dominus Franciscus de Barberino”.
- 34.
Opere di Brunetto Latino, vol. II, pp. 13–15.
- 35.
Street numbers in red are for shops, those in black for residences.
- 36.
La Musica della Commedia dell’Ensemble San Felice di Federico Bardazzi e Marco di Manno, Playlist, retrievable from YouTube.
- 37.
“E chiamoronsi Priori dell’Arti e stettono rinchiusi nella torre della Castagna appresso alla Badia, acciò non temessono le minacce de’ potenti” [And they were called the Priors of the Guilds and were strictly enclosed in the Torre della Castagna by the Badia so as to be removed from the threats of the powerful], Dino Compagni, Cronica.
- 38.
BML Plut. 29.8, Zibaldone Laurenziana; Giovanni Boccaccio, Lo Zibaldone, ed. Guido Biagi; JB Holloway, Twice-Told Tales, p. 504.
- 39.
Della Casa di Dante: Relazione con Documenti al Consiglio General del Comune di Firenze, https://www.google.it/books/edition/Della_casa_di_Dante/a8wFAAAAQAAJ?hl=it&gbpv=1&dq=Della+Casa+di+Dante+relazione+con+documenti+al+Consiglio+generale+del+Comune+di+Firenze&printsec=frontcover, pp. 51–52.
- 40.
26. Galigai, Via dei Tavolini, corner of Via dei Cerchi, on your left.
- 41.
27. Della Bella, Via dei Cerchi, Via dei Tavolini, on your right. Giano Della Bella was descended from Ugo of Tuscany and had the same stemma.
- 42.
28. Abati, Via dei Tavolini, 8.
- 43.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Poems and Translations, p. 398. Guido Cavalcanti addresses the poem to Guido Orlandi who replies stuffily in a tenzone that Cavalcanti had better pay heed to the Church’s authoritative teaching rather than espouse such a lay Christianity. See “Two Sonnets” at this book’s opening.
- 44.
Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF) 253, Libro denari pervenuti in mano del Sindaco di OSM per la vendita di candele fatta cavanti all’Oratorio.
- 45.
Necrologia, Archivio, Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, I.3.6, fol. 41r.
- 46.
31. Lamberti. Dante is sarcastic here. Mosca de’ Lamberti was involved in counselling the Amidei to take revenge and kill Buondelmonte at the Ponte Vecchio on Easter Sunday, 1216, when a Donati woman caused the betrothed groom to jilt his Amidei bride for her daughter. The 1216 strife between the 34. Buondelmonte, 36. Amidei, 31. Lamberti, 9. Uberti, and 14. Donati families gave birth to the Ghibelline and Guelf vendettas in Florence, against which Brunetto Latino carefully taught his students in the Tesoretto.
- 47.
Behind the Post Office in Piazza Davanzati is the Museum of the fourteenth-century Palazzo Davanzati, with frescoed walls and complete with plumbing and toilets, much loved by Italian school children. Chiaro Davanzati was a poet colleague of Dante’s teacher, Brunetto Latino. The palace shows what living would be like for a rich noble Florentine family, while Dante, an orphan, was comparatively poor.
- 48.
33. Gianfigliazzi, Via Tornabuoni, 1, his stemma, a blue lion on gold on a pouch. Dante, in Inferno XVII, from the viewpoint of the fraudulent chimaera, Geryon, sees the Usurers in Hell (his own father was one), and describes their pouches as each having their stemma, their coats of arms. One of them is Rinaldo Scrovegni, whose son has Giotto fresco the Arena Chapel in Padua.
- 49.
34. Borgo Santi Apostoli, 6, on the Buondelmonte palace.
- 50.
36. Amidei, Por S. Maria, 11 rosso, on the Amidei tower.
- 51.
See https://www.florin.ms/DanteFlorence.html for 40. Massimo Tosi, Firenze prima di Arnolfo.
- 52.
“’È una veritade ascosa sotto bella menzogna’ (Convivio II.1); San Miniato, San Mina, Sant’Albano e San Dionigio”, De strata francigena XXVI/2, 2018, 9–34.
- 53.
JB Holloway, Beata Umilta: Sguardo sulla Santa Umiltà: Contemplating on Holy Humility, trans. Fabrizio Vanni.
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Bolton Holloway, J. (2024). Chapter 2: Dante’s Circle in Space. In: Dante and His Circle. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44093-9_2
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