Toynbee "Andrea de' Mozzi"
member of the noble Florentine family (who were Guelphs and Bianchi) of that name; bishop of Florence 1287-1295. After having been chaplain to Popes Alexander IV and Gregory IX, Andrea accompanied Cardinal Latino into Tuscany (in 1278) when the latter was sent by Nicholas III to mediate between the Guelphs and Ghibellines. In 1272, he was a canon of Florence and, in 1287, he was appointed bishop. During his bishopric, the church of Santa Croce and the great hospital of Santa Maria were founded in Florence, the latter being endowed (in 1287, it is said at Andrea's suggestion) by Folco Portinari, the father of Beatrice. In Sept. 1295, on account of his unseemly living, he was (at the request of his brother Tommaso de' Mozzi, say Boccaccio and Benvenuto) transferred by Boniface VIII to the see of Vicenza, where he died a few months later (Feb. 1296). His body, in accordance with his own directions, was sent back to Florence and buried in the church of San Gregorio (which had been founded by the Mozzi family), where a monument was erected to him with the inscription:

Sepulcrum venerabilis patris domini Andreae de Mozzis Dei gratia episcopi Florentini et Vicentini.

Andrea is referred to by Brunetto Latini as colui . . . che dal servo de' servi / fu trasmutato d'Arno in Bacchiglione, / dove lasciò li mal protesi nervi (i.e. the one who was transferred by the pope from Florence to Vicenza), and included by him among those who are with himself in Round 3 of Circle VII of Hell, where those guilty of unnatural offences are punished (his malpractices, according to early commentators, being alluded to in [Inf. xv. 112-114] [Bacchiglione: Violenti].

Benvenuto describes Andrea as a simpleton and buffoon and gives several instances of his ridiculous naïveté in preaching. On one occasion, he says, he compared the Providence of God to a mouse sitting on a beam; on another he illustrated the immensity of the divine power by contrasting the insignificance of a grain of turnip-seed with the magnificence of the full-grown turnip, of which he produced a large specimen from beneath his cloak:

. . . volo te scire cum non modico risu, quod iste spiritus fuit civis florentinus, natus de Modiis, episcopus Florentiae, qui vocatus est Andreas. Iste quidem vir simplex et fatuus, saepe publice praedicabat populo dicens multa ridiculosa; inter alia dicebat, quod providentia Dei erat similis muri, qui stans super trabe videt quaecumque geruntur sub se in domo, et nemo videt eum. Dicebat etiam, quod gratia Dei erat sicut stercus caprarum, quod cadens ab alto ruit in diversas partes dispersum. Similiter dicebat, quod potentia divina erat immensa; quod volens demonstrare exemplo manifesto, tenebat granum rapae in manu et dicebat: bene videtis, quam parvulum sit istud granulum et minutum; deinde extrahebat de sub cappa maximam rapam, dicens: ecce quam mirabilis potentia Dei, qui ex tantillo semine facit tantum fructum.

[See R. Davidsohn, GvF, ii, pt. I, p. 440, ii, pt. 2, p. 155, et passim; E. Palandri, 'Il vescovo Andrea de' Mozzi nella storia e nella leggenda dantesca', GD, xxxii (1931), 91-118; E. Sanesi, 'Del trasferimento di messer Andrea dei Mozzi da Firenze a Vicenza', SD, xxii (1938), 115-122.]

©Oxford University Press 1968. From A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante by Paget Toynbee (1968) by permission of Oxford University Press