Now perhaps best known as the leading patron of the poet Dante Alighieri and featuring prominently in Giovanni Boccaccio's almost contemporary Decameron, Cangrande was in his own day chiefly acclaimed as a successful warrior and autocrat.

Between becoming sole ruler of Verona in 1311 and his death in 1329 he took control of several neighbouring cities, notably Vicenza, Padua and Treviso, and came to be regarded as the leader of the Ghibelline faction in northern Italy.

The canine allusion was emphasised by the Scaliger lords from Cangrande's reign onwards by the adoption of a dog's head heraldic crest atop their helmets and also on their tombs and other monuments.

On Alberto's death in 1301, Cangrande was entrusted to the guardianship of his eldest brother Bartolomeo I della Scala, in whose brief reign he probably first met Dante when the poet took refuge in Verona following his exile from Florence.

His bravery in battle is well documented; his mercy to defeated foes impressed even his enemies, among them the Paduan historian and dramatist Albertino Mussato, who praised Cangrande's honourable treatment of Vinciguerra di San Bonifacio after the conflict at Vicenza in 1317.

Cangrande saw his first military action in the campaigns of his other brother Alboino I della Scala—who succeeded Bartolomeo in 1304—fighting alongside other Ghibelline leaders against the Guelph dynast Azzo VIII of Este, Lord of Ferrara.

This was also the year of his marriage to Giovanna, daughter of Conrad of Antioch and a descendant of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, a union which was to endure for his lifetime but bring no heirs, although he fathered several illegitimate children.

The death of Henry VII in August 1313 freed Cangrande from his duty to provide resources to the Imperial cause and a change of government at Padua gave him time to amass a sizable army.

A large army under Padua's warrior Podestà Ponzino de' Ponzini marched through the night and invaded the Vincentine suburb of San Pietro in the early hours of 17 September 1314.

Daring feats of arms such as his hell-for-leather ride to Vicenza appealed to the popular imagination, even gaining the reluctant admiration of such men as Mussato, who fervently opposed Cangrande's autocratic style of rule.

Cangrande ignored the Pope's threats of excommunication and re-emphasised his Ghibelline credentials by attacking the Guelphs of Brescia in concert with the feared Tuscan warlord Uguccione della Faggiuola.

Cangrande showed magnanimity to his hereditary foe Vinciguerra di San Bonifacio who was seriously wounded in the conflict, having him nursed at his own palace and affording him a magnificent funeral on his death a few weeks later.

Cangrande set out immediately with a large army to surprise the town of Monselice, a key Paduan stronghold on the eastern slopes of the Euganean Hills.

The Paduan Greater Council represented by Jacopo da Carrara felt compelled to agree to any terms other than unconditional surrender and on 12 February 1318 ceded Monselice, Este, Castelbaldo and Montagnana to Cangrande for life and ordered the restoration of citizens exiled from Padua.

Cangrande spent the spring and summer of 1318 fighting for the Ghibelline cause in various cities, undeterred by the Pope's excommunication (enforced in April for his persistent refusal to renounce his Imperial Vicariates).

He came close to success but was eventually thwarted in June when the Trevisans reluctantly accepted the protection of the powerful Henry III of Gorizia, Frederick I of Austria's nominated Imperial Vicar.

This resignation denied Cangrande his chief pretext for war but he was soon on the offensive again, taking castles from Henry of Gorizia in Trevisan territory in March and in June, with the aid of Paduan exiles, mounting an unsuccessful stealth attack on Padua itself.

He pledged his allegiance to Louis IV of Bavaria after the latter's victory over Frederick I of Austria at the Battle of Mühldorf in September 1322 and in June 1323 formed an alliance with him, Passerino and the Estensi of Ferrara in aid of the Visconti of Milan.

If his aim was to impress the emperor of his superiority over the other Lombard magnates the most telling result was to arouse the jealousy and suspicion of Milan's rulers the Visconti and he soon found it prudent to return to Verona, where in June 1327 he involved himself in revisions to the city's legislature.

The city was ripe for such a takeover, forsaken by its Imperial Vicar Henry of Carinthia and in a state of internal lawlessness as its most powerful autocrat Marsilio Da Carrara struggled to control dissolute noblemen, not least members his own family.

Meanwhile, Veronese forces under Cangrande's nephew Mastino della Scala in league with Paduan exiles, most prominent amongst them Nicolo da Carrara (a distant cousin of Marsilio) encamped not far away at Este posing a constant threat.

Faced with these difficulties Marsilio eventually decided to surrender the city to Cangrande under an arrangement in which he retained some power rather than risk losing everything by fighting him or trying to do a deal behind his back with the exiles.

To cement the new order Jacobo da Carrara's daughter Taddea was betrothed to Cangrande's nephew Mastino della Scala, the wedding itself taking place at a great Curia at Verona in November 1328.

[1][2] The evidence leans towards deliberate murder by poisoning, perhaps under the guise of medical treatment for the illness Cangrande is said to have contracted from drinking infected spring water prior to his arrival in Treviso.

In Verona itself, he reformed and expanded the legislature, introducing few new laws and regulations but clearing up obscurities, omissions and inconsistencies in the existing manuscripts so efficiently that his statutes lasted with little significant alteration to the end of the Scaligeri period.

Despot though he was, Cangrande's rule was generally pragmatic and tolerant in marked contrast to Ezzelino III da Romano, the last warlord to hold comparable territories in eastern Lombardy.

His bravery sometimes bordered on recklessness, usually leading his men from the front when attacking enemy troops or assaulting the walls of a fortress, although after his defeat by the Paduans in 1320 this boldness gave way to a more cautious approach.

Poets, painters, grammarians and historians all found a welcome at Verona during his reign and his personal interest in eloquent debate is reflected by his addition of a professorship of Rhetoric to the six academic chairs already provided for in the Veronese statutes.

The comments of the historian A.M. Allen, written at the beginning of the 20th century, remain apposite: "whatever might be thought now of his land hunger, ostentation and imperious temper, to his contemporaries he appeared little short of perfect".

Cangrande I della Scala appears in Giovanni Boccaccio's almost contemporary Decameron (1348-53), in the seventh tale of the first day, in which he is portrayed as a wise ruler, graceful enough to accept (and indeed reward) a veiled rebuke from Bergamino, a jester visiting his court.