Venus. For if the gentle Cyprians deified their Venus, and the Romans their Flora, how much more honestly may a Christian poet save Cunizza.”  The lady, whose salvation is on these grounds inexpugnably accomplished, was married to Count Sanbonifazio of Padua, in her twenty-fourth year; and Sordello was early called to this nobleman’s court, having already given proofs of his poetic genius.  He fell in love with Cunizza, whom her lord, becoming the enemy of the Eccelini, began to ill-treat.  A curious glimpse of the manners and morals of that day is afforded by the fact, that the brothers of Cunizza conspired to effect her escape with Sordella from her husband’s court, and that, under the protection of Eccelino da Romano, the lovers were left unmolested to their amours.  Eccelino, indeed, loved this weak sister with extraordinary tenderness, and we read of a marvelous complaisance to her amorous intrigues by a man who cared nothing himself for women.  Cunizza lived in one of her brother’s palaces at Verona, and used to receive there the visits of Sordello after Eccelino had determined to separate them.  The poet entered the palace by a back door, to reach which he must pass through a very filthy alley; and a servant was stationed there to carry Sordello to and fro upon his back.  One night Eccelino took the servant’s place, bore the poet to the palace door, and on his return carried him back to the mouth of the alley, where he revealed himself, to the natural surprise and pain of Sordello, who could have reasonably expected anything but the mild reproof and warning given him by his truculent brother-in-law:  “Ora ti basti, Sordello.  Non venir piu per questa vile strada ad opere ancor piu vili.”—­“Let this suffice thee, Sordello.  Come no more by this vile path to yet viler deeds.”

It was probably after this amour ended that Sordello sat out upon his travels, visiting most courts, and dwelling long in Provence, where he learned to poetize in the Provencal tongue, in which he thereafter chiefly wrote, and composed many songs.  He did not, however, neglect his Lombard language, but composed in it a treatise on the art of defending towns.  The Mantuan historian, Volta, says that some of Sordello’s Provencal poems exist in manuscript in the Vatican and Chigi libraries at Rome, in the Laurentian at Florence, and the Estense at Modena.  He was versed in arms as well as letters, and he caused Mantua to be surrounded with fosses five miles beyond her walls; and the republic having lodged sovereign powers in his hands when Eccelino besieged the city, Sordello conducted the defense with great courage and ability, and did not at all betray the place to his obliging brother-in-law, as the latter expected.  Verci, from whose “History of the Eccelini” we have drawn the account of Sordello’s intrigue with Cunizza, says:  “The writers represent this Sordello as the most polite, the most gentle, the most generous man of his time, of middle stature, of beautiful aspect and fine person, of lofty bearing, agile and dexterous, instructed in letters, and a good poet, as his Provencal poems manifest.  To these qualities he united military valor in such degree that no knight of his time could stand before him.”  He was properly the first Lord of Mantua, and the republic seems to have died with him in 1284.