Torre dei Donati, Medieval tower in Santa Croce district, Florence, Italy

Torre dei Donati is a medieval tower at via del Corso 31-33 rosso in Florence, built on a quadrangular plan within the line of buildings along the street. It is faced in exposed filaretto stone and keeps buche pontaie, the square holes where wooden beams once held scaffolding. A Dante plaque on the tower recalls the death of Corso Donati.

The tower belonged to the Donati family, whose rivalry with the Cerchi family, driven by envy over which tower stood taller, fed the bloody struggle between the White and Black Guelphs that Dante Alighieri recounted in the Divine Comedy. To separate the two families' houses, the commune cut a buffer alley, the vicolo dello scandalo, still opening a few buildings to the right of the tower.

The Donati family gave its name to this tower, and Gemma Donati, wife of Dante Alighieri, came from that family. Stone-carved Dante quotations are visible on the house, and a plaque on the tower recalls the death of Corso Donati.

Torre dei Donati stands at Via del Corso 31-33 rosso, in the historic centre of Florence, a short walk from the Duomo and Palazzo Vecchio. The tower is part of the street's building front and is seen from outside; the vicolo dello scandalo, the narrow lane the commune cut to separate the Donati and Cerchi houses, opens a few buildings to its right.

The tower carries a Dante plaque commemorating the death of Corso Donati, leader of the Black Guelphs. A few buildings to the right, the narrow Vicolo dello Scandalo was cut by the commune as a buffer between the Donati and Cerchi houses; its winding, arch-covered passages show how tangled medieval Florence was.