Val di Pado

Description

In Canto XV of Paradiso (v. 137) Dante recalls that Cacciaguida's mother «venne a me di val di Pado» ("came to me from Val di Pado"), an expression that exegetical notes trace to the Po Valley. These same notes recall that families bearing the name Alighieri are attested in various cities of the Po plain, including Ferrara, Parma, and Verona, and that critical tradition favors the hypothesis of Ferrara, supported among others by the Ottimo, Boccaccio, and Bruni. In Ferrara, the Aldighieri family appears in documents from as early as the eleventh century, with an Aldighiero degli Aldighieri recorded in 1083, possibly the father of Cacciaguida's wife. From this union would have been born Alighiero, who transmitted to his descendants the surname later adopted by Dante.