When you think of Lucca, you think of the walls, the churches, the towers. But there’s another, thinner thread—almost a whisper—that links the city to Dante: Gentucca.
You don’t need to be a Divine Comedy expert to get it. Just know this: Dante imagines himself making a great journey through the afterlife and, along the way, he meets people who speak to him, tell him stories, and sometimes drop hints about his future.
That’s exactly what happens in Purgatorio (the second part of the Comedy), Canto XXIV. Dante is walking among souls who, in life, had a troubled relationship with food. Now they speak of it with modesty and shame—and that theme becomes a doorway into much bigger matters.
At a certain point a man from Lucca appears: Bonagiunta Orbicciani. You recognize him right away because he starts talking to Dante and, almost inadvertently, lets a name fall. Dante hears it the way you hear a word spoken under someone’s breath—one of those words that sticks in your head even if you’re not sure you caught it properly:
“He was murmuring; and I don’t know what ‘Gentucca’…”
That uncertainty is crucial: Dante himself admits he didn’t understand perfectly. And that’s where one of the most intriguing ideas comes from: what if “Gentucca” wasn’t even a name, but something like “gente di Lucca” (“the people of Lucca”), said softly and indistinctly, and then recorded by Dante exactly as it reached him? In other words: it could be a tiny mishearing— a fragment that turns into a word.
Right after that, though, Bonagiunta clarifies, and Dante grasps the meaning better: in Lucca a girl has been born, and one day—when Dante is in exile, far from home—she will be the one to make him appreciate Lucca, to make the city “pleasant,” that is, welcoming:
“A woman is born, and she does not yet wear a veil, …
who will make my city pleasing to you…”
Here’s the point: in just a few lines Dante builds a small mystery. Why include that name? Why have it spoken by a man from Lucca? And above all: who was Gentucca?
“She does not yet wear a veil”: why say that?
Dante adds a very concrete detail: this young woman does not yet wear a sign typically associated with married women or widows. In other words, Bonagiunta is saying she is young (or at least not yet “settled,” according to the conventions of the time). It’s an everyday, almost domestic way of suggesting that Gentucca is a real person, in a real society.
So is Gentucca real—or a symbol?
We have to be honest: we don’t know for sure. And that’s part of what makes the passage so fascinating.
Broadly speaking, there are two possibilities:
– Gentucca as a real person: a woman from Lucca who helped Dante or offered him hospitality;
– Gentucca as a slippery word, perhaps born from an uncertain hearing (“I don’t know what Gentucca…”) and made all the more memorable because of that.
There is, however, an important fact: “Gentucca” isn’t necessarily an invented name. In Lucchese archives, women with that name do appear in the right period. Scholars have tried to identify whether one of them could be the Gentucca of Purgatorio. The two most frequently cited leads are:
– a Gentucca connected to the Morla family, recorded in a document dated 11 March 1316 as the wife of Bernardo Morla;
– a Gentucca linked to the Fondora family, appearing in documents dated 15 December 1317, which some consider more plausible also for reasons of age.
This doesn’t solve the riddle, but it tells us something clear: the name was Lucchese—real and plausible. So Dante’s “Gentucca” isn’t pure fantasy: she belongs to a concrete Lucca, made of families, relationships, and hospitality.
And did Dante ever go to Lucca?
Here we can add another key piece: according to several reconstructions, Dante did go to Lucca in 1308 (often a stay between 1308 and 1309 is suggested, or more generally between late 1307 and the first months of 1309).
So the “prophecy” doesn’t sound like something invented out of thin air: it suggests that during his exile Dante had dealings with Lucca—or with people from Lucca—directly enough for the memory to enter his verses. But the narrative core isn’t “a love story”: it’s more restrained, more believable. Gentucca feels like a figure of welcome—someone who, in a hard moment, makes a city feel less foreign.
And yes: calling her “Dante’s tour guide” works as an image. Not because she shows him around with a little umbrella, but because she helps him discover a Lucca that is livable, human, friendly.
And if you like the alternative reading, she could even be the “people of Lucca”—Lucchese hospitality in person—turned into a name born from a whisper.
A note on the author and further reading
These intersections between Dante and Lucca are also explored by Annalisa Marraccini, the author of this article, who has dedicated a short, accessible booklet to the topic—a librino (or, in Lucca, a libbrino)—titled LUCCA ALL’INFERNO, about the links between Dante, the Divine Comedy, and the city.
Gentucca is like that: mysterious and Lucchese. She isn’t “explained” all the way through. She passes by, leaves an echo, and makes you want to do two things: return to those lines—and then return to Lucca with fresh attention.
Looking for a Dante tour in Lucca?
If this story about Dante and Gentucca has sparked your curiosity, you can book a Dante-themed tour in Lucca—“Lucca all’Inferno”—with Anna: an itinerary dedicated to the Divine Comedy and its connections with Lucca, through verses, characters, and details.
And if you’d like to dig deeper before (or after) the tour, Annalisa Marraccini is also the author of the libbrino LUCCA ALL’INFERNO, devoted precisely to Dante and the Divine Comedy in Lucca, with the Lucchese passages and characters cited in the poem explained in a simple, enjoyable way.
📩 Email: annalisa.marraccini@gmail.com
📱 WhatsApp/Telefono: 3476960039 (Annalisa, o meglio “l’Anna”)
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