Maremma

The Maremma region is an area of Italy bordering the Tyrrhenian Sea. It comprises part of southwestern Tuscany – Maremma Livornese and Maremma Grossetana (the latter in the province of Grosseto) – and part of northern Lazio (in the province of Viterbo and Rome on the border of the region).

• Dante Alighieri in his Divina Commedia places Maremma as the region between Cecina, and Corneto (formerly known as Tarquinia).

Pia de' Tolomei is a tragic figure whom Dante encountered in Purgatory. Her story was so familiar to Dante's readers that an understated allusion in Part Two of The Divine Comedy, Purgatorio, was enough to call it to mind:

«Deh, quando tu sarai tornato al mondo,
e riposato de la lunga via»,
seguitò 'l terzo spirito al secondo,
«Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;
Siena mi fé, disfecemi Maremma:
salsi colui che 'nnanellata pria
disposando m'avea con la sua gemma.»

“Ah, when you have returned to the world,
and rested from the long journey,”
followed the third spirit after the second,
“remember me, the one who is Pia;
Siena made me, Maremma undid me:
he knows it, the one who first encircled
my finger with his jewel, when he married me.”

• Gaetano Donizetti composed an opera, Pia de' Tolomei (1837), to a libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, the final scenes of which take place in Maremma, where Pia has been imprisoned in a tower by her husband Nello for supposed infidelity. The region's natural setting emphasizes the romantic suffering of Pia. The role of Pia was created at the premiere by Fanny Persiani (1812-1867), the soprano who first sang Lucia di Lammermoor in 1835.

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