Arno

   ... Per mezza Toscana si spazia
un fiumicel che nasce in Falterona
e cento miglia di corso nol sazia.

(Purgatorio XIV.16-18)

   ... Through half of Tuscany stretches
a little river born in Falterona
and a hundred-mile course doesn’t tire it.

---

This pleasant little tercet on the Arno comes from a longish passage in Purgatorio in which Dante introduces himself to Guido del Duca on the terrace of the Envious, where sinners’ eyes are stitched shut. This tower, known as the Torre della Zecca Vecchia, or Old Mint Tower, was built just before the 1333 flood.

Legend has it that there is a passageway (now filled with water) in its foundation that used to go from here under the river to the other side. In Dante’s time, the official mint was located in the area now covered by the Uffizi. It opened in 1237 and in 1252 began making florins.

On the corner of Via dei Neri and Via Giancarlo Setti (just steps from Piazza Santa Croce), you can find two historical markers together (above). They both record a high-water mark during immense flooding. The horizontal line on the small top plaque marks the maximum height of the Arno during the flood of 1966. The one beneath it is much older. It reads: “MCCCXXXIII dì quattro di novembre giovedì, la notte poi vegnendo ’l venerdì, fu alta l’acqua d’Arno fino a qui” (“Thursday night, November 4, 1333, and into Friday, the Arno’s rivers rose to here”), with a manicula (a small pointing hand common in medieval manuscripts) indicating the river’s level.

Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani remembers: “In the year of our Lord 1333, on the first of November [...] it began to rain [...] and it rained continuously for four days and nights. The waters came down so much more heavily than usual that it seemed there were waterfalls falling from heaven, and they were accompanied by frequent and terrible thunderclaps and numerous flashes of lightning. [...] On account of these rains, the Arno grew so full of water that much of the Casentino sank under water, and then the whole plain near Florence [...]. In the Duomo and the Baptistry, the water level rose above the height of the altars and to about the middle of the columns that flank the entrance, and it knocked over the cross-tipped column of San Zanobi. In the Bargello, it rose to the first step of the staircase where you go in. [...] And the statue of Mars, which was on a pilaster at the head of Ponte Vecchio, fell into the Arno.” (Villani, Nuova cronica 12.1)

Raffaello Sorbi. Dante incontra Beatrice (1903). Notice the Torre della Zecca Vecchia in the background