Dino Compagni

The plaque reads: “This plaque commemorates the Compagni family who had their properties here, but they were demolished at the end of the seventeenth century to provide a suitable area for the Corsini Palace. Here lived Dino Compagni, third Gonfaloniere of the Republic who, with a citizen’s heart and a historian’s mind, left first-person accounts of his own times and Dante’s.”

Dino Compagni, who was a contemporary of Dante and a White Guelph, served in several capacities in Florence’s government and was even prior during the Battle of Campaldino in 1289. His two tombstones in Santa Trinita attest to his admirable service to his native city.

But he became famous for his Cronica, which he probably finished between 1310 and 1312. More than an objective, historical overview of Florentine history, the Cronica is in many ways a sort of heartfelt memoire told from the perspective of a person whose outlooks and opinions were similar to those of Dante. In this sense, the work is of particular interest to anyone concerned with understanding the most pressing political issues of Dante’s years in Florence. Like Giovanni Villani’s rather more comprehensive history, therefore, Compagni’s brief text is essential reading for Dante admirers.

Dino lived in a small house here that was destroyed around 1685 to make room for the gargantuan palazzo Corsini al Parione that stretches out over the space of several older properties. Compagni’s descendants purchased another property on Via Bufalini, which was later bought by Francis joseph Sloane, the man who paid for the exterior and the façade of Santa Croce in 1862.

Coat of arms of the Compagni family