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