Situated in the upper valley of the Arno, the Casentino and had long been disputed by Arezzo and Florence. In Dante’s time it was ruled by the Conti Guidi, an old and prestigious family that had arrived in Italy in the court of Emperor Otto. The famous battle of Campaldino, in which Dante participated, took place there in 1289. From 1307 to 1311, Dante stayed in the area, at Poppi, Romena and Dovadola, as a guest of Count Guido da Battifolle, with duties as a court intellectual, similar to those exercised in Forlì for the Ordelaffi, and in the Lunigiana for the Malaspina. Dante was in Poppi in 1307, when he sent Epistle IV to Moroello Malaspina with the canzone Amor da che convien. Other letters can be traced to Dante’s time in the Casentino: Epistle VI, in April 1311, addresses the “villainous” Florentines who opposed Henry VII’s plans to restore the Empire; Epistle VII is to the Emperor himself; Epistles VIII, IX and X, written between the end of 1310 and the beginning of 1311 in the name of the Countess Gherardesca, the wife of Guido da Battifolle, address Margaret of Brabant, the Emperor’s wife. Soon after this, however, Dante left the area: when Henry VII left Tuscany for good in 1312, putting an end to his political project and to the hopes of the Florentine exiles, Dante had in fact already transferred to Verona, perhaps also as a result of the reconciliation between the Conti Guidi of Dovadola and Battifolle with Florence’s pro-papacy government. The poet’s strong bond with the Casentino is indicated in the Commedia through the inclusion of people from the area, such as Master Adam, who counterfeited the Florentine florin upon the instigation of the Conti Giuidi (Inf., XXX), and Bonconte da Montefeltro, who died during the battle of Campaldino by being swept away by the river Arno in flood (Purg., V).
Casentino
