sance 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.

The madness whi