Forlì

Description

Forlì is mentioned by Dante in the Inferno (XVI, v. 99) within the simile of the Montone river: the torrent, which in its upper course takes the name Acquacheta, no longer keeps that name upon reaching the level of Forlì, where that name «is vacant». The note to the passage clarifies that with this expression Dante means to say that the river «no longer has that name» near the city, and that the Acquacheta is in fact one of the torrents that form the Montone, namely the one that creates the falls of San Benedetto. In the Purgatorio (XXIV, v. 32) Forlì reappears in an image by Bonagiunta Orbicciani, who speaks of a poet accustomed «to drinking at Forlì with less dryness», comparing the city to an example of a thirst not yet entirely quenched. Forlì also appears indirectly in the notes to canto XIV of the Inferno, which recall the Conti Ordelaffi as lords of the city and the powerful Guelph family of the Paolucci, lords of the castle of Calboli, whose member Rinieri repeatedly contested their dominance.