where the old entrance to the
Braccioforte chapel had been; to be discovered by chance in 1865.

It is curious that even as the last cantos of the _Divine Comedy_ were
discovered by means of a dream, so a dream went before the discovery
of the bones of Dante.

"The sacristan of the Franciscan confraternity," we read, "called La
Confraternita della Mercede, was wont to sleep in the damp recesses of
the ancient chapel of Braccioforte." His name was Angelo Grillo ...
This sacristan declared himself to have seen in a dream a shade issue
from the spot where the body was found, clad in red, that it passed
through the chapel into the adjoining cemetery. It approached him, and
on being asked who it was, replied, 'I am Dante.' The sacristan died
in May 1865, a few days before the discovery of the bones on the 27th
of that month. Upon June 26, 1865, the bones of Dante were replaced in
their original sarcophagus, ornamented by Pietro Lombardi, after
having lain in state for three days, during which thousands from all
over Italy passed before them. There it is to be hoped they will
remain.

[Illustration: CAMPANILE OF S. FRANCESCO]

XVI

MEDIAEVAL RAVENNA

THE CHURCHES

When we come to examine what is left to us of mediaeval Ravenna, of
the buildings which were erected there during the Middle Age, we shall
find, as we might expect, very little that is either great or
splendid, for, as we have seen, after the first year of the ninth
century Ravenna fell from her great position and became nothing more
than a provincial city, perhaps more inaccessible than any other in
the peninsula. Her achievement such as it was in the earlier mediaeval
period consisted in the production of three men of real importance, S.
Romuald of the Onesti family of Ravenna, who was born in the city
about the year 956 and who founded, as we know, the Order of
Camaldoli; S. Peter Damian, who was born there about 988; and Blessed
Peter of Ravenna, Pietro degli Onesti, called _Il Peccatore_, of the
same stock as S. Romuald.

The work of S. Romuald was a reform of the Benedictine Order. The
Order of Camaldoli which he founded was the second reform which had
come out of the great brotherhood of S. Benedict; it was younger than
the Cluniac but older than the Cistercian reform, and it was begun in
1012. In that year S. Romuald, who was a Benedictine abbot, having
been dismissed by all the houses over which he had successively ruled,
for they would