The idea has been accepted by some scholars and rejected by others that this Count Alessandro was identical with the Count of Romena of the same name, who, with Guido and another brother, employed the forger Adamo of Brescia to coin false florins at Romena. The reader of Dante is familiar with the figure of Adamo, whom the poet found in Hell, suffering from dropsy and terrible thirst. He told him how he was burnt alive for his acts at Romena, and how he longed for the sight of those who employed him--one of the counts, he has heard, is already in Hell. Falsified florins were discovered in 1281; a cairn on the road above Romena is popularly held to mark the spot where Adamo was burnt. It is locally known as the “Maccia del Uomo Morto,” and travellers not many years back were wont to throw a stone on it in passing. The genealogy of the owners of Romena, however, remains a matter of dispute. On the face of it, it seems improbable that Dante thought well of the abettor of a forger, or relegated a man he admired to Hell. Still these were stirring times of changing sympathies, and though the view has been advanced that there were two Counts Alessandro, uncle and nephew, the evidence brought forward by Passerini, who argues that there was but one, has never been conclusively disproved. Above Romena, at the head of the valley, lie the ruins of Porciano, and the expression “Capo d’Arno,” if taken literally, would apply to it. But Dante’s relation with its counts is based on legend only. They were a set of lawless, changeful men. There was a Count Guido of Porciano who was condemned in 1282 by the city of Florence to pay five thousand lire for murder, theft and arson. He had eight sons, and several of them were fined in 1291 for waylaying and robbing a merchant from Ancona. In 1311 five of the brothers received the ambassadors of the Emperor at San Godenzo and swore fealty to the Imperial cause, but four of them afterwards deserted it. If Dante thought favourably of those of Porciano for their Imperial sympathies, it cannot have lasted. For in describing the sources of the Arno in the _Comedy_ he says that the river takes its rise among “foul hogs more worthy of galls than of any food made for the use of man,” with obvious reference to the meaning of the word _porci_ as contained in the place-name Porciano. A tradition is preserved, according to which the poet was kept prisoner at Porciano, possibly after the battle of Campaldino. An anecdote intended to illustrate his ready wit is localised here. The poet, we are told, had left the castle and was walking down the hill when he met some men from Florence, who were sent to take him into custody. They did not recognise him, and asked if Dante were at Porciano, and he replied, “He was there while I was!”