Gualdrada

Gualdrada Berti dei Ravignani (Florence, c. 1168 - Poppi, 1226) was a member of the Ghibelline nobility of twelfth-century Florence, Italy. A descendant of the Ravignani family and daughter of the powerful Bellincione Berti, Gualdrada later married into the Conti Guido family. Her character as a pure and virtuous Florentine woman is called upon by many late medieval Italian authors, including Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, and Giovanni Villani.

Biography Gualdrada was born around 1168 in Florence, Italy. Gualdrada lived longer than her husband and died in 1226 in the Poppi Castle, a medieval castle in Poppi, Tuscany, which was owned by one of her sons. The emperor did not know that the man he was asking coincidentally was Gualdrada's father, Bellincione Berti. He responded to the emperor stating that if he wished, he could get Gualdrada to kiss him. Gualdrada overheard this exchange and bravely objected, stating that "no living man would ever kiss her except her husband," solidifying her character as one of womanly virtue and purity. giving him the honor of coming from an admirable family and using Gualdrada's image of a virtuous and good woman to do so.

Dante himself was not only a Florentine, but a (White) Guelph, so the marriage between Gualdrada, a member of a notable Ghibelline clan, to Guido Guerra III, a Guelph leader, which ended hostilities between the two factions in the city of Florence, is an event that would be understandably important to him and worthy of praise and admiration. This is especially likely since Dante started writing Inferno soon after he had been exiled from Florence for his political alignment as a White Guelph.

Dante's respect for Gualdrada extends beyond her to her family as well. Her father, Bellincion Berti, is mentioned in Canto XV, lines 112-113 and Canto XVI, line 99 of Paradiso XV as a model citizen and a symbol of the virtue of old Florence.