Blessed Ubald

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The Blessed Ubald Baldassini, born in 1084 and died in 1160, was bishop of Gubbio. In his youth he chose the hill above Gubbio – bathed by the river Chiascio which descends from that elevation – to devote himself to the eremitical life, sanctifying those places with prayer. The standard note to Paradiso XI stresses how his memory serves to give the Umbrian landscape, the setting of the birth of Saint Francis, an initial mystical characterization. The river Tupino, which flows at the foot of Mount Subasio where Assisi rises, is the first of the two waterways mentioned by Dante to indicate Francis's native region. The Blessed Ubald is cited by Dante in Paradiso XI in a passage dedicated to the praise of Saint Francis, with the verse recalling the hill "chosen" by him for his contemplative life, thus establishing a link between the eremitical holiness of Ubald and the land that saw the birth of the Little Poor Man of Assisi.