The pilgrim to Ravenna, who has any idea of what is due to the genius of
Dante, will be disappointed when he approaches his tomb. Its situation
is in a not very conspicuous corner, at the foot of a narrow street,
bearing the poet's name, and beside the Church of San Francisco, which
is interesting as containing the tombs of the Polenta family, whose
hospitality to the wandering exile has rescued their names from
oblivion. Opposite the tomb is the shabby old brick house of the
Polentas, where Dante passed many years of his life. It is tenanted now
by all sorts of people, and a dirty carriage-shop in the courtyard kills
the poetry of it. Dante died in 1321, and was at first buried in the
neighboring church; but this tomb, since twice renewed, was erected,
and his body removed here, in 1482. It is a square stuccoed structure,
stained light green, and covered by a dome,--a tasteless monument,
embellished with stucco medallions, inside, of the poet, of Virgil, of
Brunetto Latini, the poet's master, and of his patron, Guido da Polenta.
On the sarcophagus is the epitaph, composed in Latin by Dante himself,
who seems to have thought, with Shakespeare, that for a poet to make
his own epitaph was the safest thing to do. Notwithstanding the mean
appearance of this sepulcher, there is none in all the soil of Italy
that the traveler from America will visit with deeper interest. Near by
is the house where Byron first resided in Ravenna, as a tablet records.
The people here preserve all the memorials of Byron; and, I should
judge, hold his memory in something like affection. The Palace
Guiccioli, in which he subsequently resided, is in another part of the
town. He spent over two years in Ravenna, and said he preferred it to
any place in Italy. Why I cannot see, unless it was remote from
the route of travel, and the desolation of it was congenial to him.
Doubtless he loved these wide, marshy expanses on the Adriatic, and
especially the great forest of pines on its shore; but Byron was apt to
be governed in his choice of a residence by the woman with whom he was
intimate. The palace was certainly pleasanter than his gloomy house in
the Strada di Porta Sisi, and the society of the Countess Guiccioli
was rather a stimulus than otherwise to his literary activity. At her
suggestion he wrote the “Prophecy of Dante;” and the translation of
“Francesca da Rimini” was “executed at Ravenna, where, five centuries
before, and in the very house in which the unfortunate lady was born,
Dante's poem had been composed.” Some of his finest poems were also
produced here, poems for which Venice is as grateful as Ravenna. Here
he wrote “Marino Faliero,” “The Two Foscari,” “Morganti Maggiore,”
“Sardanapalus,” “The Blues,” “The fifth canto of Don Juan,” “Cain,”
“Heaven and Earth,” and “The Vision of Judgment.” I looked in at the
court of the palace,--a pleasant, quiet place,--where he used to work,
and tried to guess which were the windows of his apartments. The sun was
shining brightly, and a bird was singing in the court; but there was no
other sign of life, nor anything to remind one of the profligate genius
who was so long a guest here.