Toynbee "Monferrato"
Montferrat, former marquisate of NW. Italy, between Maritime Alps, Genoa, and Po river, now mostly in Alessandria province, SE. Piedmont; according to C. Loria [L'ltalia nella Divina Commedia (2nd ed.; Firenze, 1872), i, p. 53] it extended from the Po to the Ligurian Alps, and was divided into Upper and Lower Montferrat; the former lay between the Tanaro and the Ligurian Alps, its chief towns being Mondovì, Acqui, and Alba; the latter lay between the Tanaro and the Po, its chief towns being Alessandria, Asti, Casale, and Valenza. The princes of Montferrat were among the most powerful Italian families of the Middle Ages; several members of the house were famous crusaders. On the extinction of the male line (c. 1305), the marquisate passed to the Palaeologi by the marriage of Yolande of Montferrat to Andronicus Il Palaeologus, emperor (1282-1328) of the Eastern Roman Empire. [Table XIX.]

Sordello (in Ante-Purgatory) mentions Montferrat in connexion with William VII, marquis of Montferrat and Canavese (1254-1292), [Purg. vii. 136] [Canavese: Guiglielmo_3]; his son John I (1292-1305) is mentioned, V.E. I. xii. 5 [Iohannes_3]; a member of this family is mentioned, together with the king of Castile and the count of Toulouse, on account of his liberality, as il buono Marchese di Monferrato, Conv. IV. xi. 14; this is probably the Marquis Boniface III (1192-1207), who was one of the great patrons and protectors of the troubadours whence doubtless D.'s reference to him), as were Alfonso VIII of Castile and Raymond V of Toulouse, with whom he is coupled. 'Lo marques de Monferrat' is several times mentioned in the old Provençal lives of the troubadours; Peire Vidal, Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, and Gaucelm Faidit were among his proteges. Boniface was second son of William III (who accompanied the Emperor Conrad III on the Second Crusade in 1147), his elder brother being the famous crusader Conrad, marquis of Montferrat (1188-1192), prince of Tyre, and king of Jerusalem, whom he succeeded in the marquisate. Boniface was himself one of the leaders in the Fourth Crusade (1204) and was the first Latin king of Thessalonica. His doings in the Fourth Crusade are narrated at length by Geoffroi de Villehardouin in his La Conquête de Constantinople [edited by E. Bouchet (Paris, 1871)]; in recording his death (in 1207), he speaks of him as:

. . . un des meillors barons et des plus larges, et des meillors chevaliers qui fust el remanant del monde. (cclxxv.)

[See P. Toynbee, 'Dante's Seven Examples of Munificence in the Convivio (IV. ii*)', Romania, xxvi (1897), 453-460; reprinted in his DSR, pp. 142-149.]

©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