Garda

Description

In Canto XX of the Inferno, Dante places Garda as a geographical determination within a description of the Mantuan region that opens with the lake and the river Mincio. The village is recalled as a spatial reference point between Val Camonica, which extends to the west in a direction parallel to the lake where the Oglio flows, and the Pennine Alps, the mountain range that overlooks the basin to the north-west. In Dante's time, Garda was a walled village. The Dantesque mention is part of the geographical digression begun by Virgil on the places of his own earthly youth, in which the lake, the river, and the mountains are presented as a serene space contrasted with the sad marsh in which Manto lives.