N. 27. - Inscription at the ZECCA VECCHIA which faces the Arno.
Reading edition
Per mezzo Toscana si spazia Un fiumicel che nasce in Falterona, E cento miglia di corso nol sazia. DANTE, Purgatorio, XIV, 16–18. Through midst of Tuscany there wanders A streamlet, that is born at Falterona, And not a hundred miles of course suffice it. Longfellow’s translation.
The above is part of Dante’s answer to Guido del Duca di Brettinaro’s question, whence he cometh. He means by the streamlet the Arno—(a name so hateful to him, that he avoids pronouncing it)—that rises at Falterona, a mountain in the Appennine, its course being a hundred and twenty miles, and adds: “from its banks bring I this frame”.
From the summit of the Falterona all the valley of the Arno can be traced. Dante follows in that Canto the course of the river, and as he advances brands every place he comes to with fierce imprecation—the farther he goes, the more his bitterness increases. Which is easily understood when we remember, that during his exile he wandered up and down the valley and those mountain-paths seeking refuge from his enemies.
CONSORTERIA OF THE ADIMARI