Cecina

Description

In the thirteenth canto of the Inferno, at verse 9, Dante indicates the stretch "between Cecina and Corneto" to delimit the region of the Maremma, with the river Cecina forming the northern boundary and Corneto the southern one, in Lazio. The reference to this area, known in Dante's time as one of the wildest and most inhospitable places in Italy, serves to lead the reader's imagination to a concrete and well-known point of reference, lending realism to the landscape of the afterlife. As the critical source notes, the earthly example gives credibility to the wood in which the suicides are found, whose torments are in some way analogous to the inhospitable conditions of the Maremma scrubland.