N. 7. - Inscription to commemorate HUGO OF TUSCANY (UGO DI TOSCANA) put up at the entrance of the Badia in Via del Proconsolo:
Reading edition
Ciascun che della bella insegna porta Del gran barone, il cui nome e il cui pregio La festa di Tommaso riconforta, Da esso ebbe milizia e privilegio. DANTE, Paradiso, XVI, 127–130. Each one, who bears the sightly quarterings Of the great Baron (he whose name and worth The festival of Thomas still revives) Through him knighthood and privilege retain’d. H. F. Cary’s translation.
“The great Baron,” Marquis Hugo of Brandenburg had come from Germany with Otho III, and resided at Florence as Viceroy of the Emperor. He gave five of the chief families permission to bear his arms, and they had thereby titles and privileges of nobility. Those families were the Pulci, Nerli, Giandonati, Gangalandi and the Della Bella (see N. 19). Hugo founded seven abbeys, in one of which his memory was celebrated on St. Thomas’ day. The reason why he founded those abbeys is this: Hugo, when hunting, once strayed away from his people, and wandering through the forest came to a smithy, where he saw black and deformed men tormenting others with fire and hammers; and asking the meaning of this, he was told, that they were condemned souls, who suffered this punishment, and that the soul of the Marquis Hugo was doomed to suffer the same, if he did not repent. Struck with horror he sold all his possessions in Germany and founded seven Abbeys. He died on St. Thomas’ day 1006.