Benvenuto calls Sordello a “noble and prudent knight,” and “a man of singular virtue in the world, though of impenitent life,” and tells a story he has heard of him and Cunizza, but does not vouch for it. “Ezzelino,” he says, “had a sister greatly addicted to the pleasures of love, concerning whom much is said in the ninth Canto of Paradiso. She, being enamored of Sordello, had cautiously contrived that he should visit her at night by a back door near the kitchen of her palace at Verona. And as there was in the street a dirty slough in which the swine wallowed, and puddles of filthy water, so that the place would seem in no way suspicious, he caused himself to be carried by her servant to the door where Cunizza stood ready to receive him. Ezzelino having heard of this, one evening, disguised as a servant, carried Sordello, and brought him back.