|  |
| Toynbee "Castrocaro" |
formerly
a strong castle, now a village, in
Romagna, in the valley of the Montone, a few miles from Forli; in
cent. xiii it belonged to the counts of Castrocaro, who were
Ghibellines, but submitted (in 1282) to the Church.
Guido del Duca (in Circle II of Purgatory) includes its counts
among the degenerate families of Romagna, and laments that they had
not died out,
[Purg. xiv. 116-117].
Benvenuto speaks of them as being extinct in his day:
[Castrocaro], nobile castrum, ct vere camrll, supra Forlivium in
valle Montorii, cuius comites hodie defecerunt. Sed tunc adhuc
vigebant, sed degenerabant a nobilitate vicinorum.
About the year 1300, the castle passed into the hands of the
Ordelaffi of F orli, subsequently it appears to have been purchased
by the Florentines. It was for some years one of the principal
Guelph strongholds in Romagna. [See F. Torraca, 'Le
rimembranze di Guido del Duca', NA, xlvii (1893), 18]
©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