Abati

   Piangendo mi sgridò: “Perché mi peste?
se tu non vieni a crescer la vendetta
di Montaperti, perché mi moleste?”

(Inferno XXXII.79-81)

   quando un altro gridò: “Che hai tu, Bocca?
non ti basta sonar con le mascelle,
se tu non latri? qual diavol ti tocca?”

(Inferno XXXII.106-08)

   Weeping, he called out; “Why do you tread on me?
If not to increase the pain of my treason
at Montaperti, why do you torment me?”

   when another cried out, “What’s wrong, Bocca?
Isn’t it enough that your teeth chatter from the cold
without barking? What the devil is the matter with you?”

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The Abati family owned several houses and a tower (all incorporated into the current building) between this plaque and the corner of Calzaiuoli. They also possessed several properties and castles in the countryside. Since most of the Abati were Ghibellines, however, the Guelphs confiscated their houses and exiled most of them from the city once they took control after the Ghibellines were defeated in 1266-67.

The words on the plaque come to us from the unforgettable scene of the ninth and lowest circle of Hell, the one where Dante inadvertently (or intentionally?) kicks the head of a sinner trapped in ice, together with others who are punished there for having betrayed their homeland. The first three verses contain the complaint of Bocca degli Abati whom Dante has kicked. The second three contain the response of Buoso da Dovera who, not surprisingly, betrays his fellow infernal inmate by revealing Bocca’s name.

Dante grabs Bocca by the hair and roughs him up a bit in Doré’s illustration of the scene below.

Above: William Blake’s rendition of the scene

The crime for which Bocca is bound in the frozen Cocytus river is treason. While still among the ranks of the Guelphs at the battle of Montaperti (1260), Bocca drew his sword down on the Guelph bannerman, Jacopo de’ Pazzi (nicknamed Vacca), lopping off his hand (but others say both hands at once). The Guelph standard fell to the ground, causing confusion, disorder and their subsequent defeat at the hands of the counter-attacking Sienese Ghibellines.

“This other traitor who, hearing Bocca’s cries, calls out to him to ask what is wrong [...] is Buoso da Dovera, [...] condemned to Antenora as a traitor to the Ghibelline party. In 1265, he accepted a substantial payment from King Manfred for promising to raise troops who would oppose the entrance of King Charles I of Anjou into Lombardy. Instead, he kept the money for himself - and still more from the French - and let the Angevin army pass unhindered [across the Oglio river and into Soncino].” (Casini-Barbi’s commentary on the Comedy, 1921)

The Abati family was notorious for acts of treachery and it wasn’t only Bocca. In 1301, another of his clan poisoned his guests at a banquet given in honor of a political reconciliation. In fact, many say that the great fire of 1304 was intentionally caused by Neri degli Abati after he set fire to his own house, located close to Orsanmichele. In 1326, what was left of the Abati houses was demolished to make room for Via Calzaiuoli to stretch all the way to Piazza della Signoria.

Coat of arms of the Abati family

Coat of arms of the branch of the Pazzi family to which Jacopo belonged