Brenta

Description

In the ninth canto of Paradiso, Cunizza da Romano indicates her homeland by referring to a pair of rivers that mark its boundaries: "le fontane di Brenta e di Piava." The notes to the passage specify that the Brenta and the Piave mark, respectively to the west and to the east, the boundaries of the Marca Trevigiana, a region of the Venetian mainland. The mention of the Brenta also recurs in the notes to canto XV of Inferno, where it is clarified that the river rises in the Val Sugana, in the Alpine zone south of the duchy of Carinthia. The introductory notes to canto XXI of Paradiso finally recall Cunizza's verse as an example of Dante's use of geographical indication to circumscribe the homeland of a blessed soul.