Bugia

Description

In Canto IX of the Paradiso, the mention of Bugia – identified with Bougie, a city in Algeria – is embedded in a geographical periphrasis used to indicate that Bugia and Marseille, the birthplace of Folchetto, lie on nearly the same meridian. According to the notes to the canto, the two cities share the same sunset and the same sunrise, being about two and a half degrees of longitude apart. In the same passage, Marseille is also recalled for the historical episode of blood spilled in its harbor, with reference to the massacre carried out by Brutus in 43 B.C., an event already cited by Dante in Purgatorio XVIII 101-2. The mention of Bugia therefore has a precise function: through geographical proximity, to introduce the identification of the birthplace of the troubadour who is subsequently praised in the canto.