Rialto

Description

In canto IX of the Paradiso, at verse 26, the soul that addresses Dante defines itself as a spirit of the sphere of Mercury and indicates its own homeland with the expression "italica, che siede tra Rïalto" ("Italian, that sits between Rialto"). The critical note on the passage clarifies that the geographical indication has a specifically political function: the region of the "terra prava d'Italia" ("corrupt land of Italy"), once happy, is now presented as a place of corruption and impiety, and to it will be directed the denunciation of the blessed soul. The reference to Rialto thus serves to precisely locate the character's area of origin within Dante's polemical framework concerning the moral decadence of northern Italy.