o
long sought by them. Wherefore, in great joy, they copied them out,
and after the author's wont sent them first to Messer Cane and then
joined them on, as was meet, to the imperfect work. In such a manner
did the work of so many years see its completion."

As Boccaccio tells us, Guido Novello had scarce buried Dante in that
temporary tomb in the church of the Friars Minor when he lost his
lordship. On April 1, 1322, he was elected captain of the people in
Bologna, and when he was about to return to Ravenna he suddenly heard
that the archbishop had been murdered and that the city was in the
hands of his enemies. Do what he would he never returned to his own
city, and thus his intentions with regard to the tomb of the poet were
never carried out. The noble sepulchre which Guido had planned was not
built and the body of Dante reposed in the ancient sarcophagus in
which it had been first placed. There it remained when Boccaccio came
to Ravenna, probably in 1346 and certainly in 1350, as the bearer of a
gift from the Or San Michele Society to Beatrice di Dante, then a nun
in S. Stefano dell' Uliva.

Boccaccio, it will be remembered, had in his life of Dante bitterly
upbraided Florence for her treatment of her greatest son, and to his
blame had added a prophecy that she would soon repent of her shameful
ingratitude and would envy Ravenna "the body of him whose works have
held the admiration of the whole world." This prophecy fulfilled
itself many times and first in 1396. In that year, upon December 22,
Florence made the first of her many demands for the body of Dante,
which she now wished to bury in S. Maria del Fiore. The demand, as
Boccaccio had foreseen, was refused. It was repeated in 1429 and again
refused. By 1476, when her next attempt was made, Ravenna had passed
into the power of the Venetian Republic. It was therefore to Venice
that Florence now turned through the Venetian ambassador, who is said
to have been none other than Bernardo Bembo.

Bembo's request on behalf of Florence was, of course, a failure, but
he seems to have himself repaired the tomb and to have placed upon it
an epitaph.

"Exigua tumuli Dantes hic sorte jacebas
Squallenti nulli cognite pene situ.
At nunc marmoreo subnixus conderis arcu
Omnibus et cultu splendidiore nites
Nimirum Bembus musis incensus ethruscis
Hoc tibi quem in primis hoc coluere dedit.

Ann Sal. mcccclxxxiii. vi. Kal. Jvn.
Bernardus Bemb. Praet. aere suo