da Polenta

The da Polenta, or Polentani, were a Romagnol noble house named after the Castle of Polenta near Bertinoro, who became lords of Ravenna in the thirteenth century. Their first strongman Guido I's daughter Francesca married Giovanni Malatesta around 1275 to seal a family peace; surprised with Giovanni's brother Paolo, she was murdered by her husband between 1283 and 1286 and became a soul in Dante's Inferno.

Their kinsman Guido Novello sheltered the exiled Dante in Ravenna in 1321, where the poet died that year; Guido was overthrown in 1322. Ostasio I held Cervia and Ravenna until his death in 1346, and his descendants kept the signoria through fraternal coups.

The last of the line, Ostasio III, intrigued with Milan against Venice. The Venetians annexed Ravenna in 1441 and confined him to a monastery, where he died in 1447.