“In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love”, wrote Alfred, Lord Tennyson. In Florence, however, it is the young women who are lovelorn — and for the first time they are turning for help to Beatrice, the idealised muse of the great medieval poet Dante Alighieri.

In a phenomenon that even the local priest is hard put to explain, the tomb of Beatrice Portinari in a Florence church is covered in love notes from girls appealing to the woman who bewitched and inspired Dante to help them to ensnare their own ragazzi.

Father Roberto Tassi, priest at the 11th-century church of Santa Margherita de’ Cerchi, said that some of the notes were joyful, and some “desperate”. Some were lengthy, while others were written in the abbreviated language of text messages. All had the same purpose, however: to enlist the aid of Dante’s emerald-eyed “Goddess of Love” in affairs of the heart. “You who inspired the great Dante, inspire love in my boyfriend as well!” one states.

“Help me, Beatrice, to find the man of my life — I who am worthy of love!” reads another. Some of the notes suggest that the appeals have had an effect. “If it was you, Beatrice, who sent me this love, a gift from heaven, then thank you, thank you, for having interceded for me” one reads. “Please now make it last for ever.”

The notes began to appear on the tomb in February, when a school group visited the church, which lies between the Cathedral and Palazzo Vec-chio, the Medici-era town hall in the heart of Florence. “I saw that some of the girls had left love notes on the tomb,” Father Tassi said. “I thought it was right not to remove them but to leave them there.”

Since then there has been a growing mound of notes, not only in Italian but also in English, French, Spanish and even Japanese. “I find the whole thing rather beautiful,” he told La Stampa. “In my view these are both hymns to earthly love and expressions of love for God at the same time.”

He said that some boys had also begun to leave notes for Beatrice, and older women. “The other day I decided to keep the church open until ten in the evening because there was always someone standing or kneeling in front of the tomb.”

Dante first saw Beatrice at Santa Margherita de’ Cerchi — the local church for both their families — when she was 8 and he 9. He remained entranced by her throughout his life, even though he married Gemma Donati, while Beatrice married Simone dei Bardi, a banker, in 1287. She died only three years later, at the age of 24.

The poet and perfection

‘Whenever and wherever she appeared, in the hope of receiving her miraculous salutation I felt I had not an enemy in the world. Indeed, I glowed with a flame of charity which moved me to forgive all who had ever injured me; and if at that moment someone had asked me a question, about anything, my only reply would have been: ‘Love’, with a countenance clothed with humility. When she was on the point of bestowing her greeting, a spirit of love, destroying all the other spirits of the senses, drove away the frail spirits of vision and said: ‘Go and pay homage to your lady’; and Love himself remained in their place. Anyone wanting to behold Love could have done so then by watching the quivering of my eyes ... So it is plain that in her greeting resided all my joy, which often exceeded and overflowed my capacity.”

Dante: La Vita Nuova XI trans: Barbara Reynolds, 1969

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