Ganellone

Profile

Ganellone is identified by critical tradition with the celebrated Gano of Mainz, a figure of the Carolingian cycle and prototype of the traitor in the Chanson de Roland, responsible according to legend for the ambush at Roncesvalles in which Orlando was taken. Dante cites him in the Inferno, placing him in a sequence of contemporary traitors, alongside Tebaldello and Gianni de' Soldanier, and the graphic form Ganellone derives from the Latin accusative Ganelonem, which passed into French as Guenelon. The juxtaposition with figures from the historical reality of Florence and Romagna — among them Mordret, placed among the damned of Caina — raises the entire list to an emblematic value, making Ganellone the recognizable legendary point of reference for the reader, called upon to recognize in the feuds between Guelphs and Ghibellines the repetition of ancient acts of treachery.