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It goes in exactly the opposite direction, southwards, to Cervia. The Venice road lies away to the northward, through the wood that you can see on the furthest horizon. It was by that road I came to Ravenna. I shall never travel it again." "From Venice, father? Did you come from Venice?" asked Paolina, eagerly. "From La bella Venezia I came, daughter fourteen years ago.
The road coming out from the city by the Porta Nuova, on its way to the little town of Cervia, a few miles to the southward, traverses ground once thickly covered with palaces, streets, and churches, now open fields, and passes by the western front and doorway of the almost deserted old Basilica, a little before it reaches the turning off towards the left, which enters the forest.
He ruled for fourteen years, 1345-1359, not, however, without mishap, for his brothers conspired against him and flung him into prison at Cervia. He contrived, however, to turn the tables upon them and to hold them in the same dungeon where he himself had been their prisoner.
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.
At the age of about fifty he was made a bishop in South Italy and later transferred to the Bishopric of Cervia, not far from Ravenna. Most of his life seems to have been passed in Bologna however, and he continued to practise medicine, devoting his fees, however, entirely to charity. His text-book of surgery was written about 1266 and is signed with his full name and title as Bishop of Cervia.
The recent acquisition of the city and the salt flats of Cervia by Ravenna had become a grievance with the Venetians who desired that monopoly for themselves. It seems that in some local quarrel at Cervia certain Venetian sailors had been killed and Dante went on Guide's behalf to clear the matter up. He was to be as it happened as unsuccessful in his last embassy as he had been in his first.
There Polenta's eagle broods, And in his broad circumference of plume O'ershadows Cervia . The green talons grasp The land, that stood e'erwhile the proof so long And piled in bloody heap the host of France.
After that his diary entertains us with rumours which were reaching Venice, now that the deed was the duke's, now that the lady was with Ramires. Later the two rumours are consolidated into one, in a report of the Podesta of Cervia to the effect that "the lady is in the Castle of Forli with Ramires, and that he took her there by order of the duke."
Fearing that the bold bandit Giambattista Carraro might overtake the bridal train after it had left the boundaries of Cervia, a guard of a thousand men on foot and a hundred and fifty troopers was furnished by the people, apparently as an escort of honor.
Freind regards the chapters of Gilbert on the subject of leprosy as borrowed substantially from the "Chirurgia" of Theodorius of Cervia, who wrote about the year 1266. This view has also been generally accepted by later writers. But Dr. Payne boldly challenges the view of Freind, declares that Theodorius copied his chapters from Gilbert, and asserts that Theodorius was a notorious plagiarist.
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