Filed under: Italy
Exiled from Florence in 1302, a supporter of the losing side in the split Guelph political party, Dante Alighieri was never to see his beloved native city again. He wandered from place to place until his death 19 years later. It was in Ravenna that Dante finished the final cantos of his great work La Commedia (later dubbed by Boccaccio La Divina Commedia, the name by which we know it now). Dante died on September 13, 1321, and was buried in the Church of San Francesco in Ravenna.
Having cast him out at one point in history, the Florentine government tried at a later time to have the remains of the city’s most famous citizen returned. Ravenna stood firm and kept the body. Florence had to be satisfied with supplying the oil for the eternal flame that burns on his grave and erecting this monument in 1829 in the church of Santa Croce. “Honor the most exalted poet,” it commands us.
Words and image by Passante of Passante’s World. Photographed in Florence 2001.
