Sordello

About 1220 he was in a tavern brawl in Florence; and in 1226, while at the court of Richard of Bonifazio in Verona, he abducted his master's wife, Cunizza, at the instigation of her brother, Ezzelino III da Romano.

His didactic poem L’ensenhamen d’onor, and his love songs and satirical pieces have little in common with Dante's presentation, but the invective against negligent princes which Dante puts into his mouth in the 7th canto of the Purgatorio is more adequately paralleled in his sirventes-planh (1237) on the death of his patron Blacatz, where he invites the princes of Christendom to feed on the heart of the hero.

Sordello thus shows that he regards himself as Virgil's neighbor and friend due to their common birthplace, and the love they both share for Mantua is enough to prompt their warm reaction to one another.

Dante uses Sordello's patriotism as a starting point for an aside that presents a breakdown of Italian politics to denounce Italy and its corrupted morals, violence, and lack of effective leadership (Purgatorio 6.76-151).

Numerous references to Sordello occur in Roberto Bolaño's 2000 novella By Night in Chile, and he is a principal character in Robert Shea's two-volume historical novel The Saracen, published in 1989.