one of a noble sort, was subsequently bestowed by the father of Cardinal
Bembo, in 1483; and another, still nobler, as late as 1780, by Cardinal
Gonzaga. His countrymen, in after years, made two solemn applications
for the removal of his dust to Florence; but the just pride of the
Ravennese refused them.

Of the exile's family, three sons died young; the daughter went into a
nunnery; and the two remaining brothers, who ultimately joined their
father in his banishment, became respectable men of letters, and left
families in Ravenna; where the race, though extinct in the male line,
still survives through a daughter, in the noble house of Serego
Alighieri. No direct descent of the other kind from poets of former
times is, I believe, known to exist.

The manners and general appearance of Dante have been minutely recorded,
and are in striking agreement with his character. Boccaccio and other
novelists are the chief relaters; and their accounts will be received
accordingly with the greater or less trust, as the reader considers them
probable; but the author of the Decameron personally knew some of his
friends and relations, and he intermingles his least favourable reports
with expressions of undoubted reverence. The poet was of middle height,
of slow and serious deportment, had a long dark visage, large piercing
eyes, large jaws, an aquiline nose, a projecting under-lip, and thick
curling hair--an aspect announcing determination and melancholy. There
is a sketch of his countenance, in his younger days, from the immature
but sweet pencil of Giotto; and it is a refreshment to look at it,
though pride and discontent, I think, are discernible in its lineaments.
It is idle, and no true compliment to his nature, to pretend, as his
mere worshippers do, that his face owes all its subsequent gloom and
exacerbation to external causes, and that he was in every respect the