Filippi

Profile

In Canto XVI of the Paradiso, Cacciaguida, speaking to the souls of his ancestors and the great Florentines in the Heaven of Mars, evokes ancient Florence and lists the noble families that have disappeared. The name Filippi is inserted within a series that also includes the Greci, the Ormanni, and the Alberichi, united by the same fate of extinction or decay. The simple list does not allow one to identify with certainty the historical family to which Dante alludes, nor to reconstruct its events: the only textual data is the placement of the lineage among the Florentine houses that the prophetic voice of Cacciaguida recalls as vanished. The mention is part of the broader plan of the prediction, in which the poet outlines the illustrious past of the city to contrast it with the corrupt present.