[Footnote 9:  Cesena.]

All Romagna with its untamable fierceness and confusion lies in these lines which, as Dante wrote them, seem as unalterable as those in which the creation of the world is described.

Nor is Dante forgetful of the great destiny that had been Ravenna’s.  In the sixth canto of the Paradiso it is Justinian himself, “Cesare fui e son Giustiniano” who recounts to Dante the victories of the Roman eagle: 

  “When from Ravenna it came forth and leap’d
  The Rubicon,”

or when

  “with Belisarius
  Heaven’s high hand was linked,”

or when

  “The Lombard tooth with fang impure
  Did gore the bosom of the Holy Church
  Under its wings, victorious, Charlemagne
  Sped to her rescue.”

Nor is Dante forgetful of Ravenna’s other claims to glory.  In the seventh heaven, which is the planet Saturn, led by Beatrice, he finds S. Romualdo, and speaks of S. Peter Damiano, and blessed Peter Il Peccatore, the founder of the church of S. Maria in Porto fuori, two of them of the Onesti house of Ravenna.

  “In that place was I Peter Damiano
  And Peter the sinner dwelt in the house
  Of our blest Lady on the Adriatic shore.”

Of the earlier Podesta, too, he is not unmindful: 

  “Arrigo Mainardi, Pier Traversaro,... 
  Wonder not, Tuscan, if thou seest me weep
  When I recall those once loved names ... 
  With Traversaro’s house and Anastagio’s,
  Each race disinherited.”

With the pitiful story of Francesca da Polenta we have seen how he dealt and how he spoke of Guido Vecchio.  These people live because of him, and Ravenna in the Middle Age still holds our interest and our love because he dwelt there and she harboured him.

It was in her service, too, he met his death as we have seen, and in her church of the Friars Minor that he was laid to rest by Guido Novello.

Nine months later the lord of Ravenna received the first complete copy of the Divina Commedia, made by Jacopo Alighieri from his father’s autograph.  A very curious incident is related by Boccaccio in connection with this.  It was Dante’s custom, Boccaccio tell us, “whenever he had done six or eight cantos, more or less, to send them from whatever place he was in before any other had seen them to Messer Cane della Scala, whom he held in reverence above all other men; and when he had seen them, Dante gave access to them to whoso desired.  And having sent to him in this fashion all save the last thirteen cantos, which he had finished, but had not yet sent him, it came to pass that, without bearing it in his mind that he was abandoning them, he died.  And when they who were left behind, children and disciples, had searched many times, in the course of many months, amongst all his papers, if haply he had composed a conclusion to his work, and could by no means find the remaining cantos; and when every admirer of his in general was enraged that God had not at least lent him to the world so long that he might have had opportunity to finish what little remained of his work; they had abandoned further search in despair since they could by no means find them.