Tomba di Dante

Dante Alighieri died in Ravenna in 1321. His neoclassical tomb, designed by Camillo Morigia and completed in 1780, stands beside the Franciscan complex where the poet was first buried.

Why it matters

The remains of Dante were moved, hidden and rediscovered before settling in Ravenna, and the tomb became the focal point of the city's claim on the poet against Florence's efforts to recover him. A votive lamp above the tomb is replenished each September with olive oil sent from the Tuscan hills as a gesture associated with Florence. The surrounding area connects the Dante Museum, the Quadrarco di Braccioforte and the Basilica di San Francesco, where the poet's funeral was held.

What to notice

The compact rotunda is neoclassical in form and locally nicknamed la zucarira, or “sugar bowl.” Above the door a marble cartouche reads Dantis Poetae Sepulcrum; the facade also bears the Latin epitaph Bernardo Canaccio composed in 1327. Inside, a marble relief portrait commissioned in 1483 by Bernardo Bembo from sculptor Pietro Lombardo is among the earliest identifiable portraits of Dante. The interior marble cladding dates to the 1921 centenary of Dante's death. A bronze-and-silver wreath and an ampulla by Giovanni Mayer, added in 1908, are among the memorial objects. A nearby oak was planted at Giosuè Carducci's instigation in the early twentieth century.

Context and history

After Dante died on the night of 13–14 September 1321, Ravenna's ruler Guido Novello da Polenta arranged a modest tomb outside the church of San Francesco. Bernardo Bembo's 1483 renovation added a portrait. When Florence sought the remains in 1519, Franciscan friars hid them; they were hidden again in 1677. A wooden box inscribed Dantis ossa a me Fra Antonio Santi hic posita anno 1677 surfaced in the Quadrarco di Braccioforte in 1865, and the bones were identified and reinterred in Morigia's mausoleum. Wartime alarms sent the remains away once more; Dante returned permanently in December 1945. The tomb was built in 1780–81 under Cardinal Luigi Valenti Gonzaga.