Purgatorio (100 page)

82–84.
   Guido’s wry self-knowledge, similar to that of Sapia (
Purg
. XIII.110–111), practically defines the sin of envy as Dante understood it. Pietro di Dante (1340) cites Horace (
Epistles
I.ii.57): “The envious man grows lean when his neighbor prospers.” The citation is apt, even if Dante’s knowledge of the
Epistles
is not assured. A more certain source is found in Aquinas, as is variously noted, first by Poletto (1894):
tristitia de alienis bonis
(sadness at another’s possessions). But see Jacopo della Lana (1324), who attributes the phrase to John of Damascus (eighth century): “tristitia de bonis alienis.”

For the gray-blue color of envy see the note to
Purgatorio
XIII.8–9.
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85.
   The phrasing (sowing and reaping) is obviously biblical, as Lombardi (1791) was perhaps the first to note, citing St. Paul (Galatians 6:8): “Quae enim seminaverit homo, haec et metet” (For what a man sows, that shall he reap). Tommaseo (1837) cites another five biblical passages that also rely on this metaphor, but the passage in Paul is favored by the commentators once it enters the tradition. Here Guido, in purgation, harvests the straw of expiation for his sins on earth; his wheat awaits him in paradise.
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86–87.
   Guido’s denunciation, in the form of an apostrophe of the human race, places the blame for our envious lot in our not being able to seek goods that are shared. His phrase, “things that of necessity cannot be shared,” will come back to be scrutinized in the next canto (XV.45), there offering Virgil occasion for a lengthy gloss (XV.46–75).
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88–89.
   “Rinieri da Calboli, member of the illustrious Guelf family of that name at Forlì…. Rinieri, who played an important part in the affairs of Romagna, was born probably at the beginning of Cent. xiii; he was Podestà of Faenza in 1265 (the year of Dante’s birth). In 1276 he made war upon Forlì, but was compelled to retire to his stronghold of Calboli, in the upper valley of the Montone, where he was besieged by Guido da Montefeltro (
Inf
. XXVII), at that time Captain of Forlì, who forced him to surrender, and destroyed the castle. In 1292, while for the second time Podestà of Faenza…, Rinieri captured Forlì, and expelled … many … powerful Ghibellines. Two years later, however (in 1294), Rinieri and his adherents were in turn expelled. In 1296 Rinieri and the Guelfs once more made themselves masters of Forlì, but the Ghibellines … quickly retook the city and killed many of the Guelfs, Rinieri among the number”
(T)
.
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91–92.
   Guido now describes the boundaries of Romagna, a large area on the right-hand side of Italy, separated from Tuscany (subject of the first half of the canto’s exploration of sins along the Arno) by the Apennines, lying south and west of Romagna. The rough boundaries include the river Reno, just to the west of Bologna, the river Po, flowing into the Adriatic north of Ravenna, the Adriatic at the eastern limit, and the hills of Montefeltro at the southern edge.
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93–96.
   Once virtuous, peopled by such as Rinieri, Romagna is now turned to an unweeded garden.
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97–123.
   Guido’s second speech on a set topic, a version of the “ubi sunt?” (where are [the good folk of the past] today?) topos, as Sapegno (1955) insists, pointing to a general sense of source in the Bible and in medieval Latin hymns, includes references to ten additional worthy individuals, four families, and three towns, each of which is gone or has come upon hard times. The three categories are intermixed.
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97.
   
Lizio [di Valbona
, a castle near Bagno], a Guelph, fought alongside Rinieri in the losing battle at Forlì in 1276. Lizio is a character in one of the
novelle
(V.iv) of the
Decameron
.
Arrigo Mainardi
, a Ghibelline from Bertinoro, associated with Guido del Duca, was still living in 1228. Thus this first pair is divided equally between the two protagonists of the canto and their two political parties.
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98.
   
Pier Traversaro
, the most distinguished member of the powerful Ghibelline family of Ravenna and renowned for his patronage of poets, was an ally of Guido del Duca. At the end of his life in 1225 he was the unofficial ruler of Ravenna, where he had earlier been
podestà
for three separate terms, but his son Paolo, who succeeded him as the central political figure in the city, became a Guelph and, at his death in 1240, the Traversaro influence in Ravenna, which had been strong for nearly three hundred years, came to its end.
Guido di Carpigna
, a Guelph whose family was related to the counts of Montefeltro, was once
podestà
of Ravenna (in 1251).
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99.
   The relationship between the first four names and the present-day inhabitants of Romagna is oppositional, a notion that escaped some of the early commentators, who thought Dante was vilifying at least the next two names.
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100.
   
Fabbro [de’ Lambertazzi]
, leader of the Bolognese Ghibellines, served as
podestà
of seven Italian cities (of three more than once) between 1230 and 1258.
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101–102.
   
Bernardin di Fosco
, sprung from ordinary folk (the Ottimo [1333] says he was a peasant), apparently exhibited such personal gentility that the nobles of Faenza eventually looked upon him as one of their own. While no commentator seems to know enough about him to present his political party, the fact that he seems to have been involved in the defense of Faenza against the emperor (Frederick II) in 1240 would ordinarily suggest that he was a Guelph; on the other hand he apparently was in the emperor’s favor in 1248 and 1249 when he was made
podestà
of Pisa and then of Siena—positions that would suggest his alignment with the Ghibellines. However, Isidoro Del Lungo (1926), the only commentator to deal with the issue, simply states that he was a Guelph.
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104.
   Of
Guido da Prata
so little is known that one commentator, Luigi Pietrobono (1946), is of the opinion that, in light of the small amount of information that has come down to us, Dante had overestimated his worth. Prata is a village in the Romagna, between Forlì and Faenza; Guido seems to have been active in the political life of Ravenna.
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105.
   
Ugolino d’Azzo
was born in Tuscany, but at some point moved to Faenza (and thus, in Guido’s words, “lived among us”). He was the son of Azzo degli Ubaldini and thus related to both the cardinal Ottaviano degli Ubaldini (
Inf
. X.120) and the archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini (
Inf
. XXXIII.14). He was married to a daughter of Provenzan Salvani (
Purg
. XI.121) and died at a ripe old age in 1293.
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106.
   Of
Federigo Tignoso
practically nothing is known. Benvenuto says he was a rich nobleman of Rimini and that he had heard tell that Federigo had a great shock of yellow hair, so that his sobriquet, Tignoso, which is the adjective from the noun
tigna
(or “mange”), was a playful misnomer. Federigo’s companions were, apparently, those who took part in his hospitable way of life. Those who attempt to date his life set it in the first half of the thirteenth century.
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107–108.
   Dante suddenly switches from munificent individuals to munificent families. Of the
Traversari
of Ravenna we have heard tell in the person of Piero (see note to verse 98); now we hear of another great Ghibelline family of that city, the
Anastagi
. When we consider that the last years of Dante’s life were spent at Ravenna as a result of the hospitality of Guido Novello da Polenta it is striking that the Polentani, perhaps the greatest of all the families of Ravenna (along with the Traversari), are not mentioned here. Writing after 1317, Dante would surely have included them, since their Guelph allegiance would apparently have been no bar to being included in the cast assembled here, containing roughly as many Guelphs as Ghibellines.

Both these families have by 1300 nearly died out—a fate that is not the unmitigated disaster it might seem, as we shall soon see.
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109–111.
   These verses served Ariosto (1474–1533) as the model for the opening of his epic poem,
Orlando furioso
: “Le donne, i cavalier, l’arme, gli amori, / le cortesie, l’audaci imprese io canto” (Ladies and knights, weapons and love, courteous acts, bold-hearted deeds: all these I sing). The good old days have yielded to an iron age; it is perhaps better not to breed. That is the message that begins to be hammered home. For the themes of
cortesia
and
nobiltà
see Lo Cascio (LoCa.1967.1).
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112–114.
   
Bertinoro
, between Forlì and Cesena, was renowned for the generosity of its noble families, as the early commentators, beginning with the Anonymous Lombard (1322), told. The family referred to as having left may be the Mainardi (mentioned in verse 97) or some other; some commentators want to see the term as generic (i.e.,
all
the good people of the town) but this is probably not warranted.
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115.
   
Bagnacavallo
, between Imola and Ravenna, a Ghibelline stronghold in Dante’s time, is congratulated for not having male offspring by its counts (the Malvicini family), extinguished, in their male line, by 1300.
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116–117.
   
Castrocaro
, near Forlì, was a Ghibelline stronghold of the counts of Castrocaro until 1300, when it passed into the hands of the local Ordelaffi family and then, subsequently, into the possession of the Florentine Black Guelphs.
Conio
, a castle near Imola, was in the possession of Guelph counts. Both these strongholds are seen as breeding worse and worse stock.
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118–120.
   To conclude the brief list of families, Dante refers to the
Pagani
. They were Ghibelline lords of Faenza. Rather than praise their good early stock, Dante fixes on their “Devil,” Maghinardo Pagano da Susinana, a truly impressive warrior and statesman. A Ghibelline, he also favored the Florentine Guelphs because of their decent treatment of him when he was a child and in their protection. On one side of the Apennines he fought on the side of Guelphs; on the other, of Ghibellines. What undoubtedly took any possibility of a dispassionate view of this extraordinary man from Dante was the fact that he entered the city in November 1301 at the side of Charles of Valois, the French conqueror of Florence (in collaboration with Corso Donati).

Maghinardo is the only name mentioned in this passage of a person alive at the imagined date of the vision (he died in 1302). Everyone else is of thirteenth-century provenance, and of the persons and events datable in this welter of historical material, nothing before 1200 or after 1293 is alluded to, thus reinforcing the notion that Dante is talking, through the mouth of Guido del Duca, of the “good old days” in Romagna. A similar and longer discourse in historical romanticism will be put forth by Cacciaguida in
Paradiso
XVI, an entire canto given over to the moral supremacy of a Florence that is now long gone.
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121–123.
   The last name to resound in Guido’s list is that of
Ugolino de’ Fantolini
. A Guelph from Cerfugnano, near Faenza, he was several times
podestà
of Faenza. Dead in 1278, he was survived by his two sons, both of whom died well before 1300, so that this Ugolino’s name may be preserved from being sullied by any additional Fantolinian progeny.
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125.
   Guido’s juxtaposition of tears and speech may remind the reader of Francesca’s similar gesture—as well as Ugolino’s. See
Inferno
V.126 and XXXIII.9, as is suggested by Mattalia (1960). And see note to
Inferno
XXXIII.9.

His final words of lament, after the extraordinary vivacity and range of his styles (noble, earthy, ironic, cynical, but always sharply honed), are the last word on Romagna, which was once so fair and now is foul, a transformation that leaves only grief in its wake.
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