Note 491 — CANTO XVI.

Acquacheta: The fall of the water of the brook over the lofty cliff that sinks from the Seventh to the Eighth Circle is compared to the waterfall upon the Montone at the monastery of St. Benedict, in the mountains above Forlì. The Po rises in Monte Viso. Dante here travels in imagination from Monte Viso down through Italy, and finds that all the rivers which rise on the left hand, that is, on the north-east of the Apennine, fall into the Po, till the Montone is reached, that river falling into the Adriatic by a course of its own. Above Forlì it was called Acquacheta. The Lamone, north of the Montone, now follows an independent course to the sea, having cut a new bed for itself since Dante’s time.