Divine Comedy Landscape -- Spring 2024

The site of Ponte Vecchio—a segmental bridge crossing Florence’s Arno River—is significant to Dante’s Divine Comedy. Taddeo Gaddi completed the “Old Bridge” in 1345, and it is now a bustling tourist attraction full of jewelry, art, and souvenir vendors. However, the bridge’s entrance point marks the spot of Buondelmonte de' Buondelmonti’s murder by the Amidei clan, which incited the fights between Guelfs and Ghibellines. Participants in the Guelfs/Ghibelline conflict (e.g. Mosca dei Lamberti) appear in Dante’s Inferno, where they suffer in hell. The location of Buondelmonti’s death is now marked with a stone inscription from Dante’s Paradiso XVI 140-7. Also, legend says that Dante stood near Ponte Vecchio’s place on the Arno when he first saw Beatrice di Folco, who appears as his dead lover in the Comedy.

While a bridge connects two separate areas, Ponte Vecchio ironically represents an urban barrier resembling those in Dante’s Divine Comedy. The packed stretch of shoulder-to-shoulder tourists creates a physical divide and buffer between the touristy city center and the quieter Oltrarno district.

Cascine Park emerges as a verdant haven in Florence, offering a fascinating glimpse into the interplay between civilization and wilderness. Originally created as a hunting domain for the Medici family in the 1500s, the park's evolution mirrors the shifting perceptions of wilderness and its relationship with human civilization.

Positioned beyond the confines of Florence's old city walls, the park symbolizes the tension between urbanity and the untamed wilderness, echoing our class's exploration of Dante’s and Medieval ideas of walls, civility, and the encroachment of wilderness onto urban environments.

In its early years under Medici control, Cascine Park remained largely inaccessible to the public, embodying a curated vision of nature where wilderness was tamed, controlled and inaccessible. This privileged access to curated wilderness reflects the cultural constructions of wilderness e seen through the lens of human dominance and manipulation. Rather than a connection to religion, to God, nature exalts human excellence, greed and power.

However, as societal perspectives evolved, so too did Cascine Park. With the dawn of the 19th century, the park underwent a transformation, opening its gates to the public and becoming a symbol of accessible green space within the urban landscape. This shift mirrors broader cultural shifts towards environmental conservation and the recognition of the intrinsic value of wilderness in its untouched state. Cascine Park stands as a testament to the enduring dialogue between civilization and nature. It offers respite from city life, while also serving as a reminder of our interconnectedness with the natural world

The Pescaia di Santa Rosa is a point on the Arno, where the river is dammed, making it possible to actually sit below the water level. In order to get there, you must climb over a low stone wall and descend a slope down to the riverbank. Once there, at low tide, you can walk out about halfway across the dam and sit down. While this particular spot is certainly not mentioned in the Commedia, rivers play an important role in the geography of the world which Dante constructs. Florence being, as Calvino would say, Dante’s “implicit city,” every river in the Commedia is in some sense a representation or a reflection of the Arno.

“The water that you see does not spring from/ a vein that vapor—cold—condensed—restores,/ like rivers that acquire or lose their force;/ it issues from a pure and changeless fountain,/ which by the will of God regains as much/ as, on two sides, it pours and it divides” (Purgatorio 28).

There are few other places—none that I know of along the Arno—where one is able to come into such visceral contact with the Arno river and the immense natural force it represents. Sitting out on the Pescaia di Santa Rosa, you hear the sound of water crashing onto water. You can meet the water on its own terms, at eye level, standing effectively beneath its surface. From this intimate vantage point, we see water doing as it always will in a perfectly arranged cosmos such as Dante’s: water will flow down. And it will do so with so much force, such deep conviction, for it has no other choice.

Mt. Ceceri is a popular wooded mountain for hiking located directly next to Fiesole, with viewpoints for the greater Florence area. While exploring the paths that man has carved through this once wilderness, one can encounter open quarries, caves, and even the spot of the alleged flight of Leonardo da Vinci's machine in 1506.

“The kindly master said: “My son, the city that bears the name of Dis is drawing near, with its grave citizens, its great battalions.”... But not before we’d ranged in a wide circuit did we approach a place where that shrill pilot shouted: “Get out; the entrance way is here.”

This location is reminiscent of two environments/topics discussed in class. The most obvious is the wilderness. This mountain, once complete wilderness, has been carved out as a place for people to escape from the urban lifestyle that has encroached to the border of this place over the centuries. This leads into the second topic, the border between the natural and urban. The mountain is the closest semblance of true nature within eyeshot of the Florentine urban sprawl. Additionally, with its placement directly next to Fiesole, it is a stark reminder of how these natural borders are not rigid, and never can be as long as humans attempt to claim an ecological dominance over the planet.

The Villa la Pietra Gardens is a living mausoleum of the aesthetic ideals of the past. The Villa’s official website states that the garden (as it is now) was the product of efforts from 1908 to about World War 2. However, the Garden is representative of much more than that. There used to be a walled English garden on the property of which no traces now remain. And, if we were to talk of the “original” garden dated to around the initial completion of the villa of that we don’t have the faintest inkling. Isn't it poignant then that as nature is said to wreak havoc on men that we too rail against it?

There are trees hundreds of years old on the property and the greenhouse which housed the lemon trees (integral to the family’s income) still remains. Yet, what wasn’t too big to change or didn’t provide any monetary value is now gone without a trace. In that sense the garden is reflective of one of the core values explored in the Divine Comedy- man vs. nature (this of course does not exclude himself). It certainly offers a new perspective of Canto XIII. Would it have been crueler if the people who had committed suicide were flowers? To be vulnerable, and only protected as long as someone found them beautiful. Trees can endure a lot more and it is no easy feat to get rid of one. It makes one wonder how much of their fate was a blessing or a curse?

This is an inscription placed on the Portinari house which was owned by Folco Portinari, an Italian banker. He was the father of six daughters and most notably Beatrice who many believe to be Dante’s muse in the “Divine Comedy.”

This inscription is a direct quote from Purgatorio Canto 30: “Over her snow-white veil with olive cinct appeared a lady under a green mantle, vested in colour of the living flame.” During this excerpt, Dante has a vision of Beatrice, dressed in white green and red, symbolizing faith, hope, and charity. She also is wearing a crown with an olive branch, symbolizing peace and wisdom. The last part about a living flame is about God’s presence, and how divine love can be transformative. Her physical appearance is radiating, which is also representative of her superior status to Dante as his guide through Paradise.

In real life, Beatrice Portinari is believed to have married into another family of bankers, the Bardi. One of the popular theories is that she died quite young due to giving birth to a son.

In his poem “Vita Nova,” Dante documents that he and Beatrice met as children in 1274 and again in 1283 as teenagers. However, her death in 1290 comes as a terrible shock, inspiring the poet to study philosophy and Latin texts, this depression finally coming to an end with the making of “Vita Nova,” meaning “rebirth.”