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pillars has been replaced by a statue of San Vitale.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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