Toynbee "Adimari"
powerful Florentine family; alluded to by Cacciaguida (in the Heaven of Mars) as l'oltracotata schiatta, [Par. xvi. 115]; he describes them as overbearing and savage to those giving way to them, but servile towards those who opposed them or were wealthy ([Par. xvi. 115-117]); he adds that in his day they were already coming into importance, but were of such low extraction that Ubertino Donati (who had married a daughter of Bellincione Berti, of the house of Ravignani) was not by any means pleased when his wife's sister married one of them ([Par. xvi. 118-120]) [Bellincion Berti: Donato, Ubertin].

Villani says of the Adimari:

Nel quartiere di porta san Piero erano . . . il legnaggio degli Adimari i quali furono stratti di casa i Cosi, che oggi abitano in Porta rossa, e santa Maria Nipotecosa feciono eglino; e bene che sieno oggi il maggiore legnaggio di quello sesto e di Firenze, non furono però in quelli tempi de' più antichi. (iv. 11.)

He says they were Guelphs (39), and as such were expelled from Florence in 1248 (vi. 33); they were among those who took refuge in Lucca after the Ghibelline victory at Montaperti in 1260 (vi. 79); and, when subsequently the Guelph party in Florence split up into Bianchi and Neri, they all joined the former, with the exception of the Cavicciuli branch:

[I] Cerchi furono in Firenze capo della parte bianca e con loro tennero della casa degli Adimari quasi tutti se non se il lato de' Cavicciuli. (viii. 39.)

It appears from Villani (vii. 56) that there was a bitter feud between them and the Donati (who were afterwards leaders of the Neri) long before the division of the Guelph party in Florence, and this feud is doubtless hinted at in Cacciaguida's allusion, [Par. xvi. 118-120]; Benvenuto comments on this passage:

. . . unus nobilis de Donatis nomine Ubertinus moleste tulit, quod soror uxoris suae daretur uni de Adimaris. . . . Ad quod sciendum quod dominus Bellincionus, . . . fuit socer Ubertini de Donatis, qui filiam suam habuit in uxorem; sed quia tradidit aliam filiam, uni de Adimaris Ubertinus valde indignatus fuit, quia reputabat sibi ad verecundiam, quod esset factus affinis et cognatus unius de Adimaris.

The Adimari, who were divided into three branches, viz. the Argenti, the Aldobrandi, and the Cavicciuli, were D.'s near neighbours in Florence and were notoriously hostile to him. This was especially the case with the Cavicciuli branch, who, as Villani states (viii. 39), unlike the rest of the family, joined the Neri; one of these, a certain Boccaccio or Boccaccino, according to early commentators, got possession of D.'s property when he was exiled, and always actively opposed his return. Benvenuto says:

. . . est praesciendum quod isti vocantur Adimari, et alio nomine Caviccioii, ex quibus fuit unus nomine Boccaccinus, quem Dantes offenderat tempore quo erat in statu. Quare ille post exilium autoris impetravit ils communi bona eius, et semper fuit sibi infestus, et totis viribus semper obstitit cum consortibus et amicis, ne autor reverteretur ad patriam. Quare autor facit altam vindictam cum penna, quam non potuit facere cum spata.

According to Dino Compagni (ii. 25), one of the Adimari, one Baldinaccio, was included in the same sentence of banishment, in 1302, as D. himself.

©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