ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 



of eighteen noble youths who received the honour of 

 knighthood at the hands of their imperial master. 

 Soon after this the young knight married Benedetta 

 del Sale, a daughter of one of the oldest and proudest 

 families of Ravenna, which the chronicler Fiandrini 

 describes as " il nobilissimo casato del Sale." 



At this time Ravenna had already lost her 

 independence. The last of her Polenta rulers had 

 been deprived of his principality by the Signory of 

 Venice, and sent to die in exile in the isle of Candia. 

 The twin columns still standing in the Forum remind 

 us that during seventy years Ravenna was numbered 

 among the subject-lands of Venice, although the 

 winged lion which formerly crowned one of these 

 pillars has been replaced by a statue of San Vitale. 

 Guidarello, however, proved himself a loyal servant 

 of the Republic, and the fidelity which he showed 

 to the Venetian Podesta of Ravenna was probably 

 the cause of his early death. His first laurels were 

 earned in the service of the Republic, and he soon 

 rose to considerable renown as a wise and valiant 

 captain. Contemporary writers describe him as being 

 not only a brave soldier, but a cultivated scholar, 

 learned in the Greek and Latin tongues, and the 

 poets who lamented his premature end spoke of 

 him as dear alike to Minerva and Bellona a Mars 

 in war and a Cato in peace. 



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