Lizio

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Lizio is remembered exclusively on the cornice of the envious in Purgatorio (XIV), where Guido del Duca pronounces his name, asking «Ov’ è ’l buon Lizio e Arrigo Mainardi?» (Pg XIV 97), launching a lament for the liberal and courteous lords of times gone by. The ancient notes identify him as lord of Valbona on the Tuscan-Romagnol Apennines, a Guelph and podestà of Florence, still alive in 1279. The commentators describe him as «largo e curiale uomo e di grande cortesia» (Lana) and tell an anecdote of munificence: to set up a banquet in Forlì he would have sold half a coverlet of zendado for sixty florins (Ottimo). Like the other names listed in the same apostrophe, his fame survives thanks to Dante's verses, which have rescued him from oblivion, transforming him into a proverbial example of a courtesy now disappeared.