N. 29. - Inscription outside Porta San Miniato placed at the foot of the stairway that leads to the MONTE ALLE CROCE:
Reading edition
........ per salire al monte, Dove siede la Chiesa che soggioga La ben guidata sopra Rubiconte, Si rompe del montar l’ardita foga Per le scalee che si fero ad etade Ch’era sicuro il quaderno e la doga; DANTE, Purgatorio, XII, 100–105. ........ to ascend the mount, Where seated is the Church that lordeth it O’er the well-guided, above Rubiconte, The bold abruptness of the ascent is broken By stairways that were made there in the age, When still were safe the ledger and the stave. Longfellow’s translation.
Dante, in describing a certain site in the Purgatory compares it to the stairway that leads to the Monte alle Croce. The church of San Miniato is situated on the height that overlooks the Arno, where it is crossed by the bridge of Rubiconte, (now Ponte alle Grazie) so called from Messer Rubiconte da Mandella of Milan, Podestà or chief magistrate of Florence, by whom the bridge was constructed in 1237 (Villani). Dante speaks ironically, when he calls Florence “the well guided city”, and “that time, when the ledger and stave were safe” alludes to certain instances of fraud, committed in Dante’s time with respect to the public accounts and measures. A certain Messer Niccolò tore out a leaf from a ledger to hide his fraud.