Verona

Description

Verona is cited by Dante as the monastic seat of an abbot of San Zeno, a figure with whom the poet engages in Purgatorio XVIII. In the Commedia the city also appears as the setting of a footrace on the first Sunday of Lent, with a green palio, recalled in Inferno XV, a scene that evokes the memory of Brunetto Latini. The city is also mentioned as the theater of factional struggles of the thirteenth century: in Inferno VI the Montecchi of Verona are paired with the Cappelletti of Cremona as symbols of the Ghibelline and Guelph factions that convulsed Lombardy. The tradition of the troubadours, in particular Sordello, links Verona to the court of Riccardo di San Bonifacio, at which the Provençal poet stayed.