N. 26. - Inscription and coat of arms to commemorate the DONATI at the left side of the tower on the Corso N. 2 (with entrance from Piazza Donati). The building is a remnant of one of the Donati towers, which rose by the side of the entrance to their Piazza and Corte:
Reading edition
........ il luogo, u’fui a viver posto, Di giorno in giorno più di ben si spolpa, Ed a triste ruina par disposto”. ........ “quei che più n’ha colpa Vegg’io a coda d’una bestia tratto In ver la valle, ove mai non si scolpa.” DANTE, Purgatorio, XXIV, 79–84. ........ the place where I was set to live From day to day of good is more depleted, And unto dismal ruin seems ordained”. ........ “him most guilty of it At a beast’s tail behold I dragged along Towards the valley where is no repentance.” Longfellow’s translation.
The first three lines are Dante’s answer to Forese, a Tuscan poet, who had been Dante’s friend on Earth, and whom he finds purifying himself of the vice of gluttony. Forese’s question being: “When shall I again behold thee?” Dante answers: “How soon soever I return—My wishes will before me have arrived,—because the place where I am set to live etc.” This in reference to the political state of Florence. In the latter three lines Forese foretells (the fictitious date of the Poem being about 1300) the death of Corso Donati, Dante’s political enemy and the head of the Neri (see N. 20 and 22) who was the cause of Charles of Valois’ being sent to Florence by Boniface VIII and was suspected and finally formally accused of himself aiming at the sovereignty.—To escape the fury of his fellow-citizens he fled away on horseback, but falling, was overtaken and slain A. D. 1308, which fact Forese’s prophecy alludes to. A contemporary annalist, after relating the circumstances of his fate, adds that “he was one of the wisest and most valorous knights, the best speaker, the most expert statesman, the most renowned and enterprising man of his age in Italy, a comely man of graceful carriage, but very worldly and had formed many scandalous practices for the sake of attaining state and lordship”.
Dante’s wife Gemma was the sister of Corso Donati; notwithstanding this he was greatly instrumental in obtaining the decree of exile against the Poet.