Gentucca

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Gentucca is recalled by Bonagiunta Orbicciani in canto XXIV of Purgatorio, who murmurs her name without explaining its meaning, foretelling that she will make the city of Lucca pleasing to Dante during the time of his exile. Archival research has identified various noblewomen of Lucca with this name; the most likely identification is with Gentucca Morla, wife of Bonaccorso di Lazzaro di Fondora, who in 1317 had young children and could therefore still have been a young girl in 1300. Two anonymous glosses of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries on the verse of the poem seem to confirm the identification. Dante may have met her during the period he spent with the Malaspina in Lunigiana between 1306 and 1308, when he followed Moroello in Lunigiana and could have gone to Lucca, where moreover a document of 1308 attests the presence of Giovanni, the poet's firstborn son. The nature of the relationship between Dante and this noblewoman remains uncertain.