Eccelino da Romano III

( Sordello. ) Known as Eccelin the Monk, or Ezzelin III. He was the Emperor Frederick’s chief in North Italy, and was a powerful noble. He was termed “the Monk” because of his religious austerity. He is described by Mr. Browning in the poem as “the thin, grey, wizened, dwarfish devil Ecelin.” He was the most prominent of Ghibelline leaders, was tyrant of Padua, and nicknamed “the Son of the Devil.” Ariosto, Orlando Furioso , iii. 33, describes him as “Fierce Ezelin, that most inhuman lord, Who shall be deemed by men a child of hell.” “His story,” says Long fellow, in his notes to Dante’s Inferno , “may be found in Sismondi’s His to ire des Républiques Italiennes , chap. xix. He so outraged the religious sense of the people by his cruelties that a crusade was preached against him, and he died a prisoner in 1259, tearing the bandages from his wounds, and fierce and defiant to the last. ‘Ezzelino was small of stature,’ says Sismondi, ‘but the whole aspect of his person, all his movements, indicated the soldier. His language was bitter, his countenance proud, and by a single look he made the boldest tremble. His soul, so greedy of all crimes, felt no attraction for sensual pleasures. Never had Ezzelino loved women; and this, perhaps, is the reason why in his punishments he was as pitile against them as men. He was in his sixty-sixth year when he died; and his reign of blood had lasted thirty-four years.’”