Toynbee "Cammino, Gherardo da"
the son of Biaquino da Cammino and India da Camposampiero, was born c. 1240, was a citizen of Padua and held vast estates around Belluno and Cadore was captain of Belluno and Feltre, and in 1283 became captain-general of Treviso, an offfice he held until his death in March 1306, when he was succeeded by his son Riccardo ([Par. ix. 50-51]); he is mentioned by Marco Lombardo (in Circle III of Purgatory) who, in speaking of the degenerate state into which Lombardy had fallen after the wars between Frederick II and the Church, says that there yet survive three old men whose lives are a reproach to the younger generation, viz. Currado da Palazzo, Guido da Castello, and il buon Gherardo, [Purg. xvi. 121-126]. D. then asks of what Gherardo Marco is speaking ([Purg. xvi. 133-135]); whereupon Marco expresses astonishment that D. should never have heard of G., whose name must have been well known throughout Tuscany ([Purg. xvi. 136-138]), and adds that he knows him by no other name than that of il buon Gherardo, unless it be as the father of Gaia (whose reputation was just the opposite of that of her father) ([Purg. xvi. 139-140]) [Cammino, Riccardo da] [Federigo_2: Gaia.]

In his discussion as to the nature of nobility in {Con.IV. xiv. 12} D. singles out Gherardo as an illustrious instance of tme nobility:

Pognamo che Gherardo da Cammino fosse stato nepote del più vile villano che mai bevesse del Sile o del Cagnano, e la oblivione ancora non fosse del suo avolo venuta: chi sarà oso di dire che Gherardo da Cammino fosse vile uomo? e chi non parlera meco dicendo quello essere stato nobile? Certo nullo, quanto vuole sia presuntuoso, pero che egli fu, e fia sempre la sua memoria.

That Gherardo's name was familiar in Tuscany is evident from the fact, pointed out by I. Del Lungo [Dino Compagni e la sua cronica (Firenze, 1880),i, pt. 2, pp. 596-597 and n. 6], that he is mentioned in one of the Cento novelle antiche (Nov. xv, ed. Borghini) as having shortly before his death (which occurred 'dopo ventidue anni di giustissimo governo' on March 26, 1306) lent to Corso Donati, who was later on (in 1308) podestà of Treviso, a sum of 'quattromila lib. per aiuto alla sua guerra'. The Ottimo Commento remarks that G. 'si diletto non in una, ma in tutte cose di valore', and Benvenuto says of him:

Iste fuit nobilis miles de Tarvisio, de nobilissima domo illorum de Camino, qui saepe habuerunt pnncipatum illius civitatis. Hic fuit vir totus benignus, humanus, curialis, liberalis, et amicus bonorum: ideo antonomastice dictus est bonus.

[On the Cammino family, and on Gherardo in particular, see G. B. Picotti, ICaminesi e la loro signoria in Treviso dal 1283 al 1312 (Livorno, 1905); G. Biscaro, 'Dante e il buon Gherardo', SM, I (1928), 74-113; A. Marchesan, Treviso medievale (Treviso, 1923), ii, p. 399.]

©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