Jauffred (or Geffrey) de Rudel is yet more famous, and his story will strikingly illustrate the manners of those times. Rudel was the favourite minstrel of Geffrey Plantagenet de Bretagne, the elder brother of our Richard Coeur de Lion, and like the royal Richard, a patron of music and poetry. During the residence of Rudel at the court of England, where he resided in great honour and splendour, caressed for his talents and loved for the gentleness of his manners, he heard continually the praises of a certain Countess of Tripoli; famed throughout Europe for her munificent hospitality to the poor Crusaders. The pilgrims and soldiers of the Cross, who were returning wayworn, sick and disabled, from the burning plains of Asia, were relieved and entertained by this devout and benevolent Countess; and they repaid her generosity, with all the enthusiasm of gratitude, by spreading her fame throughout Christendom. These reports of her beauty and her beneficence, constantly repeated, fired the susceptible fancy of Rudel: without having seen her, he fell passionately in love with her, and unable to bear any longer the torments of absence, he undertook a pilgrimage to visit this unknown lady of his love, in company with Bertrand d'Allamanon, another celebrated Troubadour of those days. He quitted the English court in spite of the entreaties and expostulations of Prince Geffrey Plantagenet, and sailed for the Levant. But so it chanced, that falling grievously sick on the voyage, he lived only till his vessel reached the shores of Tripoli. The Countess being told that a celebrated poet had just arrived in her harbour, who was dying for her love, immediately hastened on board, and taking his hand, entreated him to live for her sake. Rudel, already speechless, and almost in the agonies of death, revived for a moment at this unexpected grace; he was just able to express, by a last effort, the excess of his gratitude and love, and expired in her arms: thereupon the Countess wept bitterly, and vowed herself to a life of penance for the loss she had caused to the world.[11] She commanded that the last song which Rudel had composed in her honour, should be transcribed in letters of gold, and carried it always in her bosom; and his remains were inclosed in a magnificent mausoleum of porphyry, with an Arabic inscription, commemorating his genius and his love for her. It is in allusion to this well-known story, that Petrarch has introduced Rudel into the Trionfo d'Amore. Gianfré Rudel ch' uso la vela e 'l remo, A cercar la suo morte.