Portico e San Benedetto

Portico di Romagna sits on the Montone river, in the Tuscan-Romagnolo Apennines forty-five kilometers north of Florence and sixty southeast of Bologna. The Republic of Florence chose Portico as the capital of its Romagna territories in 1386, and the borgo still reads as three medieval tiers: the upper part with the castle and the parish church, the middle with the noble palazzi along Via Roma, the lower with the artisan houses built vertically over four floors. Palazzo Portinari, on the central street, belonged by tradition to the family of Folco Portinari, Beatrice's father, and links the town to Dante's exile years.

Twelve kilometers up the Montone, the frazione of San Benedetto in Alpe holds the ruins of a tenth-century Benedictine abbey where San Romualdo stayed before founding Camaldoli, and the Cascata dell'Acquacheta that Dante described in Inferno XVI. The municipality lies inside the Parco Nazionale delle Foreste Casentinesi and carries the Bandiera Arancione.