der presently. Here it will be
enough to note that he met his death at last in the service of his
host and benefactor Guido Novello. The most disastrous action of his
life was, it will be remembered, the embassy he made on behalf of his
own city of Florence to pope Boniface VIII. That business cost him his
home and the city he loved with so cruel a passion; it made him an
exile. It was upon the longest journey of all that his last embassy
sent him. He set out it seems as ambassador of Guido Novello for
Venice, which so far as the sea and all its business are concerned had
long replaced Ravenna as mistress of the Adriatic. 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. The old doge, according
to the legend which I am bound to say is now generally regarded as a
fable, received him coldly and, so the tale runs, invited him to
dinner upon a fast day. "In front of the envoys of other princes who
were of greater account than the Polentani of Ravenna, and were served
before Dante, the larger fish were placed, while in front of Dante was
placed the smallest. This difference of treatment nettled Dante who
took up one of the little fish in his hand and held it to his ear as
though expecting it to say something. The doge observing this asked
him what his strange behaviour meant. To which Dante replied: 'As I
knew that the father of this fish met his death in these waters I was
asking him news of his father.'

"'Well,' said the doge, 'and what did he answer?' Dante replied: 'He
told me that he and his companions were too little to remember much
about him; but that I might learn what I wanted to know from the older
fish, who would be able to give me the news I asked for.'

"Thereupon the doge at once ordered Dante to be served with a fine
large fish."

[Illustration: Colour Plate S. GIOVANNI BATTISTA]

Thus Dante called attention to his great achievement, by which I
suppose he hoped at once to vindicate his dignity as a great man,
certainly greater than any one present, and by this means to lend
importance to his mission. Whatever may have been the personal result
of his sally, it did