Elisei

   Gli antichi miei ed io nacqui nel loco
dove si trova pria l’ultimo sesto
da quel che corre il vostro annual giuoco.

(Paradiso XVI.40-42)

   My forefathers and I were born in the place
where begins the last sestiere
of those who compete in your yearly race.

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It is again Cacciaguida who speaks the lines commemorated here. The importance of this plaque lies in the fact that it deals with Dante’s ancestors, the Elisei. They were born in Florence in the “last sestiere,” or final neighborhood of the two linked by the city’s palio, an annual horse race (not unlike the one still run in Siena) on St. John the Baptist’s Day.

The owner of the fastest horse won the trophy, which was a finely embroidered length of cloth (the palio). In Dante’s times, the horses began their race at the western end of Via della Scala, ran through the city gate (Porta di S. Paolo, Saint Paul’s gate), down Via della Spada and straight across the city past this plaque before reaching the finish line at Porta di S. Piero (St. Peter’s gate), which stood at the far end of what is now Piazza Salvemini.

More specifically, the Elisei lived near the corner of Via degli Speziali (Apothecary Street), named after the guild in which Dante enrolled, and Mercato Vecchio (the Old Market), which was Roman Florence’s forum and is now Piazza della Repubblica.

Although Dante never knew any of the members of the Elisei family, because they were Ghibellines exiled when Dante was only two, he nevertheless harbored great affection for this neighborhood and took pride in the fact that his great-great grandfather left Florence to fight in the Crusades.

One of Cacciaguida’s sons was given a name that came from his wife’s side of the family: Alaghiero (spelled a total of 11 different ways in extant manuscripts). Alaghiero was not only Dante’s great-grandfather, but also the man from whom his own last name derives and, some say, the man who moved his family from the Elisei properties to where the Casa di Dante is located now. Although Alaghiero never makes a first-person appearance in the Comedy, Cacciaguida reminds Dante that his shade is still circling the mountain of Purgatory, on the level dedicated to the Prideful, and that his penitential sentence can be reduced by prayer:

   ... Quel da cui si dice
tua cognazione e che cent’ anni e piùe
girato ha ’l monte in la prima cornice,
   mio figlio fu e tuo bisavol fue:
ben si convien che la lunga fatica
tu li raccorci con l’opere tue.

(Paradiso XV.91-96)

   ... The man from whom they say your last name
comes and who, for a hundred years and more,
has circled the mountain upon the first terrace,
   was my son and your great-grandfather:
it’s right that you lessen
his long labor with your good works.

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Coat of arms of the Elisei family