How long after the seventh century Sappho was read we cannot say, but in mediaeval days men were either entirely ignorant of her or had erroneous ideas. By the ninth century she seems to have become almost unknown, otherwise the critic and compiler Photius[160] would have preserved some of her works. He refers only to the tradition of her love for Phaon and the Leucadian Leap, and to the hypothesis that she was different from Sappho the courtesan, as she had been branded by that father of the church, Tatian (about 140 A.D.), who called her a female harlot, love-mad, γύναιον πορνικὸν ἐρωτομανές. That idea undoubtedly led to the burning of her books, according to Cardan, under Gregory Nazianzen, about 380 A.D. According to Scaliger, the burning took place in Constantinople and Rome in 1073. In any case, no manuscript has survived in Europe; and it is strange that now not even her legendary adventures with Phaon appear in the popular literature. The _Etymologicum Magnum_ (1000 A.D.?) mentions her only five times, but in that way preserves for us five fragments. After the time of that lexicon and Suidas, the mediaeval encyclopaedias and the _Speculum Historiale_ of Vincent de Beauvais of the thirteenth century make no mention of her, though they cite many another Greek poet. Georgius Cedrenus (1015 A.D.?), a Greek monk, who in his _Compendium Historiarum_ said that she was “the first of the Muses,” is about the only one of this time who notices her. Anna Comnena,[161] daughter of the Emperor Comnenus I, quotes as Sappho’s the verses supposed to be addressed to Sappho by Alcaeus (E. 119). And the archbishop Eustathius preserves a few fragments. Dante makes no reference to her, unless possibly very faintly in the verse “le muse lattar più ch’altri mai.” Boccaccio (1313-1375), who seems to have been forgotten by modern writers on Sappho, includes her among his _Delle Donne Famose_, “ma confortata da più caldo fervore d’animo (i suoi versi sono famosi) ... e certamente non sono più famose che la sua corona le corone dei re, nè le mitre de’ sacerdoti, nè le lauree de’ trionfanti.” Petrarch (1304-1374) mentions Sappho in his _Triumph of Love_ (IV. 25):[162] Una giovane Greca a paro a paro Coi nobili poeti già cantando Ed aveva un suo stil leggiadro e raro. In his Tenth Eclogue he dedicated four verses to her: Altera solliciti laqueos cantabit amoris Docta puella, choris doctorum immixta virorum Cinnameus roseo calamus cui semper ab ore Pendulus et dulces mulcebant astra querelae. Petrarch’s friend, Domenico di Bandino of Arezzo (1340-c. 1415), professor at Bologna, gave her a brief article in his encyclopaedic _Fons Memorabilium Universi_. The other commentators on Petrarch ignore her. Giorgio Merula (1424-1494), Poliziano’s adversary, accepts the whole Ovidian legend as historical fact and even adds a new item to Sappho’s life by giving her a son Didas by her wealthy Andrian husband, Cercylas.