Tambernicchi

Description

The name Tambernicchi appears in a passage of Canto XXXII of the Inferno (v. 28), where Dante, describing the thickness of the frozen crust of the ninth circle, resorts to a hyperbolic comparison: if two very tall mountains such as Tambernicchi and the nearby Apuan peak were to crash down upon it, not even at the edge, where the ice is thinnest, would one hear the slightest 'cric'. The critical note points out that the ancients indicated by this name a mountain in Schiavonia, near Tovarnik, but also observes that in ancient texts the form Stamberlicche is attested for a Tuscan mountain, in all probability to be identified with the Tambura of the Apuan Alps. Such toponymic oscillation contributes in turn, according to the exegesis, to the overall onomatopoeic effect of the passage, dominated by the harsh sounds of 'cricchi' and 'Tambernicchi'.