Presently, however, another brother, then archpriest of
Ravenna, took pity on him and had him educated, first at Faenza but
after at Parma, where he studied under a famous master. Here he became
immersed in the religious life so that when two monks belonging to
Fonte Avellana, "a desert at the foot of the Apennines in Umbria,"
happened to call at the place of his abode he followed them. After a
life of penitence and hardship, in 1057 pope Stephen IX. prevailed
upon him to quit his desert and made him cardinal-bishop of Ostia, and
later pope Nicholas II. sent him to Milan as his legate, till in 1062
the successor of Nicholas allowed him to return to his solitude; but
in 1063 he was sent to France as papal legate. Later we find him as
papal ambassador in Ravenna--this in 1072. He was then a very old man,
and on his way back to Rome he died at Faenza.
This famous saint has often been confused with the third great
Ravennese of this time, Pietro degli Onesti, called Pietro _Il
Peccatore_[1] This confusion, which Dante disposes of in the
well-known passage of the _Paradiso_:
"In quel loco fui 10, Pier Damiano,
e Pietro Peccator fu nella casa
Di nostra Donna in sul lito Adriano,"[2]
is commented upon in one of Boccaccio's letters to his friend
Petrarch.
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