Ravenna, a Study

by Edward Hutton

The two great Ghibelline families were the Ubertini and the Mainardi and these at first gained the mastery of the city; but in 1218 Pietro Traversari with the aid of the Mainardi turned the Ubertini out and, what is more, made himself master.

Pietro Traversari was succeeded as Podesta in 1225 by his son Paolo, who became Guelf and fought in Innocent IV.'s quarrel against the emperor Frederick II.; Frederick was able to turn the Traversari out of Ravenna in 1240 and to hold the city for eight years, but in 1248 the pope retook it and the Traversari were restored though not I think to the chief power. They remained in power till in the last year of the reign of Gregory X., 1275, Guido da Polenta appears.

Rudolph of Hapsburg was now king—not emperor, for he was never crowned by the pope. He had been a partisan of the second Frederick's, but pope Nicholas III. did not find in the founder of the Hapsburg dynasty the stuff of the Hohenstaufen. In 1278 he forced Rudolph to secure to him by an "irrevocable decree" all that the papacy had ever claimed in the Exarchate and the Pentapolis. The empire renounced all its claims in the Romagna and the Marches; the confines of the states of the Church were defined anew, and the cities of which the pope was absolute lord were named one by one. Of course among these was Ravenna.

The Polentani appear first in the story of Ravenna in or about the year 1167, when we find them acting as vicars for the archbishops. We next hear of them as Podesta, their long rule really beginning, as I have said, in 1275, when Guido il Vecchio, a rather formidable soldier, appears as captain of the people and victor over Cervia, whose territory he added to the dominion of Ravenna. It was indeed this man who first in the Ravenna of the Middle Ages attempted to establish an independent or semi-independent state, by adding territory to territory and thus creating a lordship. For this end he allied himself with the Malatesta of Rimini—a master stroke, for the Polentani of Ravenna and the Malatesta of Rimini had long been bitter foes.

The alliance was cemented by a marriage which all the world knows as an immortal tragedy. Guido Vecchio had a beautiful daughter, Francesca. Malatesta had two sons, the elder Giovanni called, for he was a cripple, lo Sciancato, the younger, for he was very fair, known as Paolo il Bello. To secure their alliance Polenta married his daughter Francesca to Malatesta's elder son Giovanni; but she had already learned to love, or she soon came to love, his brother Paolo il Bella. Giovanni came upon them one night in Rimini and killed them both with one thrust of his sword. The tragedy, however, should only be told in the immortal words of Dante, who recounts the tale Francesca told him in the second circle of the Inferno. For seeing Francesca and her lover floating for ever in each other arms "light before the wind," as the wind swayed them towards Virgil and himself the Florentine addressed them:

"O wearied spirits come, and hold discourse
With us, if by none else restrained.' As doves
By fond desire invited, on wide wings
And firm, to their sweet nest returning home,
Cleave the air, wafted by their will along,
Thus issued, from that troop where Dido ranks,
They, through the ill air speeding, with such force
My cry prevailed, by strong affection urged.
'O gracious creature and benign! who go'st
Visiting, through this element obscure,
Us, who the world with bloody stain imbrued,
If, for a friend, the King of all, we own'd,
Our prayer to him should for thy peace arise,
Since thou hast pity on our evil plight
Of whatsoe'er to hear or to discourse
It pleases thee, that will we hear, of that
Freely with thee discourse, while e'er the wind
As now is mute The land that gave me birth
Is situate on the coast, where Po descends
To rest in ocean with his sequent streams
'Love that in gentle heart is quickly learnt
Entangled him by that fair form, from me
Ta'en in such cruel sort, as grieves me still,
Love that denial takes from none beloved
Caught me with pleasing him so passing well
That as thou seest, he yet deserts me not
'Love brought us to one death, Caina waits
The soul who spilt our life' Such were their words,
At hearing which downward I bent my looks
And held them there so long that the bard cried
'What art thou pondering?' I in answer thus
'Alas' by what sweet thoughts, what fond desire
Must they at length to that ill pass have reached'
Then turning, I to them my speech address'd,
And thus began 'Francesca! your sad fate
Even to tears my grief and pity moves
But tell me, in the time of your sweet sighs,
By what, and how Love granted, that ye knew
Your yet uncertain wishes?' She replied
'No greater grief then to remember days
Of joy when misery is at hand That kens
Thy learn'd instructor Yet so eagerly
If thou art bent to know the primal root
From whence our love gat being, I will do
As one who weeps and tells his tale One day
For our delight we read of Lancelot,
How him love thrall'd Alone we were and no
Suspicion near us Oft-times by that reading
Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue
Fled from our altered cheek But at one point
Alone we fell When of that smile we read,
That wished smile, so rapturously kissed
By one so deep in love, then he, who ne'er
From me shall separate, at once my lips
All trembling kissed The book and writer both
Were love's purveyors In its leaves that day
We read no more' While thus one spirit spake
The other wailed so sorely, that heart-struck
I, through compassion fainting, seem'd not far
From death and like a corse fell to the ground"

With the name of Dante we come to the real importance Ravenna has for us in the Middle Age. Dante, however, was not the guest of Guido Vecchio. That great lord ruled in Ravenna as perpetual captain till his death in 1310, when he was succeeded by his son Lamberto who had for some time been the leading spirit in the city. He altogether abolished the so-called democratic government, that is to say, the consulship which was filled in turn by two consuls, the one succeeding the other every fifteen days. Lamberto made himself lord and reigned till 1316, when he was succeeded by his nephew Guido Novello, the consul of Cesena, who thus brought Cesena into the lordship. It is with this man that a universal interest in Ravenna may be said for a moment to revive, for it was he who had the honour to be the host of Dante Alighieri.

Guido Novello was not a mere adventurer like Guido Vecchio, he was a man of considerable culture, with a love of learning and of the arts. It was, as we shall see, at his earnest solicitation that Dante came to visit him, and if we may believe Vasari it was at the poet's suggestion he invited Giotto to his court. "As it had come to the ears of Dante that Giotto was in Ferrara, he so contrived that the latter was induced to visit Ravenna, where the poet was then in exile, and where Giotto painted some frescoes which are moderately good … for the Signori da Polenta."

Dante as we may think spent the last four years of his life in Ravenna. Those four years we shall consider presently. Here it will be enough to note that he met his death at last in the service of his host and benefactor Guido Novello. The most disastrous action of his life was, it will be remembered, the embassy he made on behalf of his own city of Florence to pope Boniface VIII. That business cost him his home and the city he loved with so cruel a passion; it made him an exile. It was upon the longest journey of all that his last embassy sent him. He set out it seems as ambassador of Guido Novello for Venice, which so far as the sea and all its business are concerned had long replaced Ravenna as mistress of the Adriatic. The recent acquisition of the city and the salt flats of Cervia by Ravenna had become a grievance with the Venetians who desired that monopoly for themselves. It seems that in some local quarrel at Cervia certain Venetian sailors had been killed and Dante went on Guide's behalf to clear the matter up. He was to be as it happened as unsuccessful in his last embassy as he had been in his first. The old doge, according to the legend which I am bound to say is now generally regarded as a fable, received him coldly and, so the tale runs, invited him to dinner upon a fast day. "In front of the envoys of other princes who were of greater account than the Polentani of Ravenna, and were served before Dante, the larger fish were placed, while in front of Dante was placed the smallest. This difference of treatment nettled Dante who took up one of the little fish in his hand and held it to his ear as though expecting it to say something. The doge observing this asked him what his strange behaviour meant. To which Dante replied: 'As I knew that the father of this fish met his death in these waters I was asking him news of his father.'

"'Well,' said the doge, 'and what did he answer?' Dante replied: 'He told me that he and his companions were too little to remember much about him; but that I might learn what I wanted to know from the older fish, who would be able to give me the news I asked for.'