Isla Gorgona

Description

In Canto XXXIII of the Inferno, Dante includes the name of Gorgona within the invective launched against Pisa after the account of the death of Count Ugolino. The wish is that the island, together with nearby Capraia, might shift to intercept the city and punish it for the treatment reserved for the four innocent sons imprisoned with their father in the tower. The notes to the passage also recall that the idea of a movement of lands or islands is a biblical image, in which divine punishment strikes entire cities or peoples, and they point out that the 'neighbors' mentioned in the preceding verse are the Florentines and the Lucchese, Guelph enemies of Pisa. Dante's mention thus fixes Gorgona as a geographical element of the northern Tyrrhenian Sea.