Apennines

Description

The Apennines are the mountain range that runs through the Italian peninsula, recalled by Dante in two passages of the poem. In Inferno XVI 96, the poet indicates the «left slope of the Apennine» (la «sinistra costa d'Apennino») as the source of the river that plunges into the ditch of the fraudulent counselors, thereby identifying the northern side of the Apennine ridge. In Purgatorio V 96, at the beginning of Buonconte da Montefeltro's account, the Archiano is said to be born «above the Herm» in the Apennine («sovra l'Ermo» in Appennino), placing its source in the Tuscan-Romagnol sector of the range, at the foot of the Casentino. The notes to Canto VII of the Purgatorio specify that the Monferrato extends «from the right bank of the Po to the Ligurian Apennines» («dalla riva destra del Po all'Appennino ligure»), confirming the link between the northern Apennines and the Po Valley territories cited in the poem. The Apennines are thus used by Dante as a geographical boundary between regions and as a measure to orient the reader within Italian space.