Maghinardo Pagani was the son of Diana di Azzo della  Pila Ubaldini, of the Montaccianico branch of the family, and of the noble Ghibelline Pietro di Pagano, from whom she inherited extensive land in the upper Lamone, Senio and Santerno valleys.
Maghinardo was an undisputed protagonist of the political and military events of Romagna in the last quarter of the 13^th century, a Ghibelline in Romagna and a  Guelph in Tuscany, Dante called him “the Lioncel of the white lair, /Who changes sides ’twixt summer-time and winter” (Inferno, Canto 17) in reference to the family coat of arms which depicts an azure lion in a white field.
The Pagani “devil” (Purgatory Canto14) married Mengarda della Tosa in 1282 and joined the Black Guelphs, who were supporters of Boniface VIII. In 1289 he was with Dante and the Guelph League at the battle of Campaldino fighting against the Ghibellines. Thanks to the Pope and his ties with Florence, he became Lord of Imola and Forlì.
Maghinardo Pagani was the Lord of the ROCCA di CASTELLONCHIO fortress which still dominates Marradiand the entire valley. In 1279 this castle was damaged by a terrible earthquake which also killed Maghinardo’s cousin.

In Brisighella (from the Celtic brix, “stoney site, peak, highland”), Maghinardo built a castle in 1290 (where today we find the 19^th century Torre dell’Orologio). This unconquerable war nest made Brisighella a strategic location between Romagna and Tuscany.
Moreover, Maghinardo implemented the defensive structure of Gamberaldi, a crucial point of his fief along the boundary between the Senio and Lamone valleys. At his death the land passed into the hands of his brother Ugolino and, therefore, the Ubaldini who, in 1362, surrendered it to Florence.
At the height of his power, the master of a small Signoria, Maghinardo died in his castle in Benclaro (August 27, 1302) shortly after drawing up a will that stated: “I chose as my burial ground, and wish for my body to be buried in the Santa Maria di Rio Cesare church and monastery according to the custom, and I wish to don the habit of the Vallumbrosan order and no other.”
The actual site of the tomb is unknown, but legend has it that it is touched by a ray of sunlight once a year during the spring equinox.

Photo credits: Maghinardo Pagani da Susinana_Pegaso Models per MuFiS – Museo del Figurino Storico Calenzano (FI)

The powerful Ghibelline family dominated the Mugello and the Apennines for a long time until the last quarter of the fourteenth century. To give the name to the family is Ubaldino, documented from 1098 to 1105, with which the prestige of the family grows inside and outside Florence. Very close to the lineage of Canossa, on the death of the Countess Matilde in 1115 they established themselves in Mugello, where they controlled numerous castles located in strategic places and the main communication routes between Tuscany and Romagna, which would later put them in contrast with Florence.
At the end of the 12th century the family divides into three branches: Galliano, Senni and Montaccianico, the main one, whose possessions will extend towards the Senio valley, Romagna, Umbria and Montefeltro, where there are still descendants of the dynasty.

The most famous personalities of the family, mentioned by Dante in the Comedy, belonged to the Montaccianico branch: Cardinal Ottaviano and his elder brother Ubaldino della Pila and his son Ruggieri, archbishop of Pisa from 1278 to 1295 who sentenced Count Ugolino della Gherardesca to death ( Inf. XXXIII); Ugolin d’Azzo or Ugolino da Senni nephew of the aforementioned brothers (Purg. XIV) Ubaldino della Pila and (Purg. XXIV), elder brother of the Cardinal and father of Ruggieri.

Photo credits: Cavaliere degli Ubaldini_MuFiS – Museo del Figurino Storico di Calenzano (FI)

Fulcieri da Calboli, the Black Guelph and Podestà of Florence, “Fierce and cruel man”, in the words of Giovanni Villani (Nuova cronica, IX, 59), persecuted both the white Guelphs who remained in Florence and the exiles. He defeated his adversaries -Ghibellines, White Guelphs and the Ubaldini clan lead by Scarpetta Ordelaffi – in the Pulicciano battle on March 12, 1303. In their flight to the fortress of Montaccianico, more than 500 White Guelphs were killed, taken hostage, tortured and condemned to death.

Pulicciano is set in a beautiful  location on a hill. Santa Maria Church, which was probably a chapel, is all that remains today of the ancient castle. On the façade we find a plaque dating back to the six hundred year anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri: “This Fortress, which was, for centuries, no stranger to sieges and battles, attests, in what remains of its walls ―today, on the six-hundredth anniversary of Dante’s death―the assault and escape of Scarpetta degli Ordelaffi together with the exiled Florentines, the harsh reprisals of Fulcieri de’ Calboli, in March 1303 the happy escape of Dante, and now a symbol of peace …1321-1921”

In painting Cimabue thought that he/ Should hold the field, now Giotto has the cry,/ So that the other’s fame is growing dim.” This famous Dantesque tercet bears witness to Dante’s esteem and admiration for Giotto (1267-1337), celebrating his artistic merits and his role in the renewal of Italian painting. Vice versa, Dante’s portrayal―found in the fresco in the Chapel of Mary Magdalene in Palazzo Bargello―is attributed to Giotto and his workshop. In his famous work “Le vite” (The lives of the artists) Giorgio Vasari states: “[…] among the others he portrayed […]in the chapel of the palace of the Podestà in Florence, Dante Alighieri, his contemporary and dear friend, who was no less famous during those times as a poet than Giotto was as a painter, and highly praised by Messer Giovanni Boccaccio in the preface of his tale about Messer Forese da Rabatta and also Giotto.”
Dante is portrayed in profile in the Last Judgement and stands among the Elect in Paradise. The portrait, which disappeared when the Palazzo del Podestà was turned into a prison, was found in 1840 and had a huge resonance both nationally and internationally.
Restored numerous times (the most recent restoration was by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure) the portrait presents numerous touch ups a secco. Dated between 1332 and 1337, it pertains to the last phase of Giotto’s activities, in the years in which the belltower of the cathedral was also built. Giotto was presumibly both the creator and the “designer” of the entire decorative cycle, as well as the one who supervised the architectural space and the groin vault roof.

Vasari bears witness to the fact that the two friends were in contact even while the poet was in exile. Giotto, in fact, went to Verona to visit “Cane”, alias Canagrande Della Scala, Dante’s famous host to whom the poet dedicated his third canticle, Paradise. On Giotto’s return to Tuscany, he stopped in Ferrara at the home of the Este family, and “[…] when news reached the ears of Dante, the Florentine poet, that Giotto was in Ferrara, he did all he could to have him taken to Ravenna, where he was exiled; and he had him fresco scenes in the church of San Francesco for the Lords of Polenta.” As is well known, in fact, the Polenta family were the last to host Dante before he died of malaria upon his return  from Venice in September 1321.
Vasari continues by stating that “[…] in 1332, being that the year before his great friend Dante had died causing him much sadness, he went to Lucca, and at the request of Castruccio, Lord of that city and his homeland, he painted a panel in San Martino.”
In Giotto’s biography we find curious anecdotes of the perfect circle drawn for Pope Benedict IX and the prank he played on Cimabue when he painted a fly on the nose of one of Cimabue’s characters: the fly was so lifelike that the master tried to shoo it away many times with his hand. In addition, Vasari writes that Giotto was “ingenious and very pleasant and terribly witty.”

The name Giotto was perhaps short for the name  Angiolotto, Ambrogiotto, Parigiotto, or even Biagiotto (the nickname “Giotto” for Biaxio was still in use in Florence in the 15^th century).
Biographical information about the artist’s first years are fragmentary. It was in the 1280s, and therefore when he was roughly ten years old, that he met Cimabue and followed him to  Florence where he worked as an apprentice in the artist’s workshop.
Legend has it that the episode that changed the boy’s life, as recounted by Lorenzo Ghiberti in his “Commentarii” (1452), and also later by Vasari, took place on the Ponte Alla Ragnaia―since called Ponte di Cimabue (Cimabue’s bridge)―while the boy was intent on depicting one of the sheep in his flock on a slate using a pointed stone. The Master was so taken aback that he asked the boy to follow him to his work shop in Florence.

Scarpetta Ordelaffi, “kind man from Furlì” (in the words of the Florentine historian Dino Compagni, Cronica II, 28), was very close to Maghinardo Pagani, whose death without male heirs he took over the government of the city.

Ordelaffi―Lord of Forlì, head of the Ghibellines in Romagna, and a man who was tied to the Ubaldini family in political faith and in his marriage to Chiara Ubaldini da Susinana―departed from Montaccianico for Pulicciano with a company of Ghibellines and White Guelphs. Dante, who was Scarpetta’s protege and secretary, and who had fought in Caprona and Campaldino, was most likely also with them.
The military expedition of March 12, 1303 was the second of five attempts by the exiled Florentines to return to Florence after the convention of San Godenzo (1302). The expedition made up of Ghibellines, White Guelphs and the Ubaldini clan lead by Scarpetta departed from and quickly returned to Montaccianico in March 1303, as reported in the chronicles of the time (Giovanni Villani, Cronica, II, 30).
Scarpetta hosted Dante in Forlì, as councilor and secretary (epistolarum dictator) in 1303 and 1310, in conjunction with the expected descent of Arrigo VII in Italy, when Dante would have written to Cangrande della Scala to deplore the negative attitude of the Florentines in the face of the coming of the emperor.