It was known that Buonconte had fallen in the battle of Campaldino, but as his body had never been identified among the slain, Dante, anxious to ascertain the true facts, represents himself as seeking the information from Buonconte himself.
And I to him: " What force or what chance caused thee to stray so far from Campaldino, that thy place of sepulture never was known?"
Buonconte, in reply, gives Dante circumstantial details as to the manner and place of his death, and how his soul was saved at the last moment by the powers of good prevailing over the powers of evil; and it is at this special point that we see, strongly accentuated, the contrast between the fate of two members of the same family. The father. Count &uido, as we have read above, was carried away by a Devil out of the very hands of St. Francis himself for a single speech of evil counsel which annulled all the fruits of his penitence. We now hear of a similar contest between the Angel and the Devil for the spirit of the son, where a single sigh uttered to the Virgin Mary, and the arms folded into the sign of the Cross upon the dying warrior's breast decides the contest in favour of the Angel, leaving the Devil to wreak his disappointment and wrath upon the dead body.
"Oh," answered he, " at the foot of the Casentino there takes its course a stream that is named the Archiano, which rises above the Hermitage (i.e., Camaldoli) in the Apennines. There, where its name comes to an end (i.e., at the point, two miles from Campaldino, where the Archiano flows into the Amo) I arrived, pierced through the throat, fleeing away on foot, and staining the plain with my blood. There my sight failed me, and I ended my power of utterance with the name of Mary, and there I sank down, and my flesh alone was left. I will speak the truth, and do thou report it again among the living; the Angel of
