San Miniato

   ............ per salire al monte
dove siede la chiesa che soggioga
la ben guidata sopra Rubaconte.

(Purgatorio XII.100-02)

   ............ in order to climb the hill
upon which sits the church that dominates
the well-run city from above the Rubaconte.

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These deeply ironic verses are taken from the terrace of the Prideful in Purgatorio. The Angel of Humility has just removed a P from Dante’s forehead and has shown him where to climb up to the next terrace.

His ascent to that level there is compared to the incline here. In Dante’s day, the path up to the church was more arduous than it is today. Indeed, the difficult climb featured narrow passageways and steps cut into the rocks of the steep incline.

The church of San Miniato (St. Minias), an excellent example of Romanesque architecture, was constructed at the beginning of the eleventh century where there had previously been an even older church, the one built in 392 to honor Minias, the first Florentine martyr, whose tomb is inside. Its façade was built with white and green marble from Prato.

Above: San Miniato al Monte, detail of the façade

Rubaconte was the name of the bridge over the Arno that was replaced by the current one, called Ponte alle Grazie, that you can see from Piazzale Michelangelo about halfway between there and the cupola of the Duomo. Named after a Milanese podestà of Florence, its construction was begun in 1237.

Despite the name of Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge), Rubaconte was actually the longest and oldest of Florence’s bridges for quite some time, but it too featured small wooden structures like those of Ponte Vecchio. Since 1345 it has been called Ponte alle Grazie and, until the nineteenth century, some of its tiny buildings were occupied by nuns whose only contact with the outside world was a small window in each of their cells. In August of 1944, the Nazis destroyed the bridge upon their retreat from Florence. The bridge in its current state was inaugurated in 1957.

Above: Fabio Borbottoni. View of the Rubaconte

Below: the view back towards Rubaconte (now Alle Grazie) from San Miniato