“Li ruscelletti, che de’ verdi colli Del Casentin discendon giuso in Arno, Facendi i lor canali e freddi e molli Sempre mi stanno innanzi....” (_Inf._ 30, 65 ff.) The Casentino is the name given to the upper valley of the Arno, where the river, rising in numerous streams on the slopes of the Falterona, flows southwards for about forty miles before it swings round in its course and runs north-westwards in the direction of Florence. The district, to use the words of a modern Italian writer, is “formed by nature in the shape of a basket”--those oval flower-baskets we see carried about the streets of Florence--“with its lowest part green with meadows, fields and vineyards, and encircled and, so…
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