Toynbee "Bonconte"

In June 1287 Buonconte helped the Ghibellines to expel the Guelphs from Arezzo, an event which was the beginning of the war between Florence and Arezzo ({Villani. vii. 115}); in 1288, he and Guiglielmino Pazzo were in command of the Aretines when they defeated the Sienese at Pieve del Toppo ({Villani. vii. 120}) [Toppo, il]; and in 1289 he was appointed captain of the Aretines and led them against the Guelphs of Florence, by whom they were totally defeated (June 11) at Campaldino among the slain being Buonconte himself ({Villani. vii. 131}), whose body, however, was never discovered on the field of battle. [Campaldino.]

In Ante-Purgatory several spirits pray D. for his good offices, one of whom names itself as Buonconte of Montefeltro [Purg. v. 85-88]), who laments that neither his wife Giovanna nor his other relatives (meaning probably his daughter, who married one of the Conti Guidi, his brother Federigo, who was podestà of Arezzo in 1300, and was killed at Urbino in 1322, or his father's cousin Galasso da Montefeltro, who was podestá of Arezzo in 1290 and 1297) remembered him in their prayers ([Purg. v. 88-90]); in answer to D.'s inquiry as to how it happened that his body was never found at Campaldino and its burial-place never known ([Purg. v. 91-93]), B. replies that having been wounded in the throat, he fled across the plain to the point (just above Bibbiena) where the Archiano falls into the Arno, and that there he fell and died, with the name of the Virgin Mary on his lips ([Purg. v. 94-102]); he then relates how the angel of God took his soul, and how the devil, in fury at being baulked of his prey at the last moment through B.'s tardy repentance, wreaked his vengeance upon the body, causing a storm of rain to fall, which flooded the Archiano, so that the corpse was swept down into the Arno, where it was rolled along the bottom and at last covered up by the gravel of the river ([Purg. v. 103-129]). [Archiano: Giovanna_1.]

Benvenuto relates that Buonconte having been sent by the bishop of Arezzo to reconnoitre the enemy's position before the battle, returned with the report that it would be highly imprudent to risk an engagement. The bishop thereupon taunted him with being an unworthy scion of the house of Montefeltro, to which B. replied that if the bishop dared follow where he led, he would never return alive; and so it happened that both were killed.