Mincio

Description

In Canto XX of the Inferno Dante includes a description of the Mantuan region that extends for about thirty verses: first the poet presents Lake Garda and the river that rises from it, the Mincio, described as places beautiful and serene, rich in water and greenery, pervaded by the Virgilian memory; then it moves on to the sad swamp where Manto withdrew to devote herself to her magical arts. The river is mentioned in the celebrated verse in which Dante explains that the lake, where the shore is lowest, overflows and changes its name: no longer Benaco, but Mincio it is called. The notes also clarify that the point where the water begins to flow into the river is the passage from Benaco to Mincio, and that the strong accentuation on the name recalls the river on which Virgil grew up, also remembered as a native of Pietola, a village on the right bank of the Mincio.