breathes and lives in words that "can never die," has enshrined these
memorials in the masterpiece of his genius. Associating Dante and
Petrarch with Boccaccio, he asks:

But where repose the all Etruscan three--
Dante and Petrarch, and scarce less than they,
The Bard of Prose, creative spirit! he
Of the Hundred Tales of Love--where did they lay
Their tones, distinguish'd from our common clay
In death as life? Are they resolved to dust,
And have their country's marbles naught to say?
Could not their quarries furnish forth one bust?
Did they not to her breast their filial earth entrust?[10]


[Illustration: (Dante's Tomb.)]


Dante was born at Florence in the year 1261. He fought in two battles,
and was fourteen times ambassador, and once prior of the republic.
Through one fatal error, he fell a victim to party persecution, which
ended in irrevocable banishment. His last resting-place was Ravenna,
where the persecution of his only patron is said to have caused the
poet's death. What an affecting record of gratitude! His last days at
Ravenna are thus referred to by an accomplished tourist:[11]

"Under the kind protection of Guido Novello da Polenta, here Dante found
an asylum from the malevolence of his enemies, and here he ended a life
embittered with many sorrows, as he has pathetically told to posterity,
'after having gone about like a mendicant; wandering over almost every