ork was certainly not written
later than 1306 the second part may well have been later.]

Lonely as he doubtless was in Ravenna he was not alone there. With him
it would seem was his daughter Beatrice, who became a nun in S.
Stefano dell' Uliva, and his sons Pietro and Jacopo. The latter,
though a lawyer and not in holy orders, held two benefices in Ravenna,
but most of his time seems to have been spent in Verona where Jacopo,
his brother, later held a canonry. And then there were his friends.

In his lectures upon Poetry one of his most eager pupils would seem to
have been his best friend and host, Guido Novello, who evidently knew
well at least those parts of the _Divine Comedy_, chiefly the
_Inferno_ be it noted, which deal with his ancestors, for he quotes
one of the most famous of them--an unforgettable line spoken by his
aunt Francesca da Rimini:

"Questi che mai da me non fia diviso."

in a sonnet of his own[2].

[Footnote 2: Cf. _Ultimo Rifugio_, p. 384, where the sonnet is given
in full.]

After the lord Guido Novello, we must name the archbishop of Ravenna,
Rainaldo Concorreggio, as among Dante's friends. It is possible that
he had known Dante at the University of Bologna and he had been a
chaplain of Boniface VIII. He was a brave man, learned in theology,
law, and music, and devoted to his religion, an eager student, and he
had composed a treatise which has come down to us upon Galla Placidia
and her church.

And then there was Giotto who came to paint if not in S. Maria in
Porto fuori, certainly in S. Giovanni Evangelista. He was Dante's dear
friend and it was probably at the poet's suggestion he had been
invited to Ravenna. We do not know whether these two men attended
Dante's lectures. But the true audience there which came simply to
hear was probably various, consisting of poets, notaries, and all
sorts of men, some of whom were Dante's friends and companions. There
was Ser Dino Perini, Ser Pietro di Messer Giardino--he was a
notary--and Fiduccio dei Milotti, who walked with Dante in the Pineta.
All these names have come down to us in the Latin eclogues written by
Dante while in Ravenna to his friend Giovanni del Virgilio--del
Virgilio because he could so well imitate Virgil.

These eclogues are full of shrewd and curious thought, a real
correspondence, and they help us to see the men who surrounded the
poet in Ravenna. They do not, however, give us so extraordinary an
impression of the stren