Iacopo Rusticucci

Who is Iacopo Rusticucci?

Jacopo Rusticucci was a 13th century Florentine politician. Rusticucci was a Guelph in the factional politics of his day. From humble beginnings in a family of Florence's minor nobility, he achieved great wealth, and prominence as a politician and diplomat.In the mid-1250s Rusticucci was active as a diplomat at a time when Florence exerted its power over the neighboring cities of Pistoia, Siena, and Pisa. Rusticucci also served as capitano del popolo of Arezzo in 1258.

Rusticucci appears among the sodomites in the seventh circle of Hell in Dante's Inferno, Canto XVI, the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy. With two other Florentine nobles, Guido Guerra and Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, he converses with Dante, blaming his proud wife for his sodomy, and pitifully inquiring about the situation in factious and depraved Florence.