Forlì is deeply connected to Dante because of the quotations contained in the Divine Comedy concerning places, facts and characters from Forlì and also because the city hosted the Great Poet several times between 1302 and 1313 during the rule of the Ordelaffi family.
There are numerous testimonies related to the Great Poet visible in the city, in the museums and in the Aurelio Saffi Civic Library.
The itinerary in the footsteps of Dante in Forlì begins at Porta Schiavonia (Schiavonia Gate), an access point for travelers coming from Tuscany along the road that connects Forlì to Florence and crosses the valley of the Acquacheta, today Montone, and the Passo del Muraglione.
A memorial stone placed near the door, on the façade of a building at the corner between viale Bologna and via Firenze, quotes the verses of the XVI Canto of the Inferno (vv. 94-99) dedicated to the Montone river that flows a few meters nearby:
Come quel fiume c’ha proprio cammino / prima dal Monte Viso ’nver’ levante, / da la sinistra costa d’Apennino, / che si chiama Acquacheta suso, avante / che si divalli giù nel basso letto, / e a Forlì di quel nome è vacante.
(E'en as the river, that holds on its course/ Unmingled, from the mount of Vesulo,/On the left side of the Apennines,/ toward The east, which Acquacheta higher up/ They call, ere it descend into the vale, / At Forli by that name no longer known.)
Leaving behind Porta Schiavonia, we enter the historical center of the city and we reach Palazzo Paulucci di Calboli D'Aste in Via Piero Maroncelli, whose construction dates back to the mid-eighteenth century.
On the façade of the building, more precisely on the right side of the main door, there is a memorial stone where Dante's tercets are engraved in memory of Ranieri de Calboli, an example of honor and founder of the noble family from Forlì who owned the building. At the same time the verses set the boundaries of Romagna according to Dante Alighieri and his contemporaries (Purgatory, Canto XIV, vv. 88-96)
Questi è Rinier; questi è ‘l pregio e l’onore / de la casa da Calboli, ove nullo / fatto s’è reda poi del suo valore. / E non pur lo suo sangue è fatto brullo, / tra ‘l Po e ‘l monte e la marina e ‘l Reno, / del ben richesto al vero e al trastullo; / ché dentro a questi termini è ripieno / di venenosi sterpi, sì che tardi / per coltivare omai verrebber meno.
(This is Rinieri's spirit, this the boast and honour/ of the house of Calboli, /Where of his worth no heritage remains./ Nor his the only blood, that hath been stript/ 'twixt Po, the mount, the Reno, and the shore, / Of all that truth or fancy asks for bliss; /But in those limits such a growth has sprung / Of rank and venom'd roots, as long would mock / Slow culture's toil)
Back on Corso Garibaldi and heading to the center, we reach Palazzo Albicini, a building with an austere and uniform façade, where Dante stayed when he was a guest of the Ordelaffi family, lords of Forlì. The memorial stone on the façade of the palace recalls Dante's and Giosuè Carducci's stay, another great Italian poet, guest of the Albicini marquises some centuries later.
"Qui, dove le case degli Ordelaffi accolsero Dante Alighieri oratore, dei fiorentini di parte bianca proscritti, a Giosuè Carducci diedero giornate di lieto riposo tra l'affettuosa devozione della famiglia Albicini la primavera e il paese della Romagna a lui tanto cara."
(Here, were the houses of the Ordelaffi welcomed Dante Aligheri the orator, exiled on the part of the Florentines, to Giosuè Carducci days of happy rest were dedicted among the affectionate devotion of the Albicini family, the spring season and the town of Romagna so dear to him.)
Walking towards the city center we arrive in Piazza Saffi, last stop of the itinerary. Right here, at the base of the bell tower of the Abbey of San Mercuriale, a memorial stone recalls the bloody episode known as "il sanguinoso mucchio" (1282), the massacre of the French, who had the duty of taking over Forlì under the command of Pope Martin IV and by the hand of Guido da Montefeltro, captain of the Ghibellines from Forlì.
The battle became a symbol of the city's pride and it was recalled by Alighieri in a famous tercet of the Divine Comedy (Inferno, Canto XXVII, vv. 43-45):
La terra che fé già la lunga prova / e di Franceschi sanguinoso mucchio, / sotto le branche verdi si ritrova.
(The green talons grasp the land, that stood erewhile the proof so long,
And pil'd in bloody heap the host of France.)
