Italy: in the places of Dante Alighieri. Interesting on the web The grave of Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri was born and lived most of his life in Florence. However, to the great disappointment and jealousy of the inhabitants of this city, the last refuge of the great Italian poet was Ravenna, where his ashes are kept. What about the “tomb” in Florence? This is only a memorial.

Dante died on the way to Ravenna in 1321, where he was in exile, just 150 km from his native Florence. His works often, albeit veiledly, affected the interests of many influential Florentines of that time. In addition, Alighieri's public activities made him persona non grata in his homeland. This fact became the reason for his burial in Ravenna.

Only with the passage of time, approximately 200 years after Dante's death, his works received recognition and, moreover, began to be considered masterpieces. The Florentines considered it unfair that the ashes of their famous countryman were found in Ravenna and decided to return him to their homeland, building a beautiful memorial for his remains. In 1519, at the personal request of Michelangelo, Pope Leo X ordered the urn to be moved to Florence, but his order was not carried out. The Franciscan monks, who were responsible for the safety of Dante's remains, secretly stole them from the tomb and hid them in the monastery.

It is not known for certain when and at what point the remains were moved again and ended up in the wall of the church near the tomb. The hidden sarcophagus was discovered only in 1865 during renovation work, almost 350 years after a failed attempt to move it.

The mausoleum in Ravenna is a simple marble structure, inside of which there is a sarcophagus with an urn made in 1483. It is located in a quiet and remote side street, where the poet’s peace is not disturbed by noisy crowds of tourists.

Good to know

The tomb is located in the grounds of the Basilica of San Francesco at the end of a narrow alley. The mausoleum is quite easy to miss - follow the GPS.

In addition to being the final resting place of Dante Alighieri, Ravenna has many other attractions. For example, perfectly preserved Byzantine mosaics, the most famous outside of Istanbul.

In 1302, the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri (Florence, 1265 - Ravenna, September 14, 1321) was expelled from his native Florence for belonging to the White Guelph party.

After long wanderings around different cities Italy in 1316-1317, Dante found refuge in Ravenna at the court of the city's ruler, Guido Novello da Polenta. Next to him were his sons Jacopo and Pietro, his daughter Antonia, as well as close friends. In Ravenna, Dante writes the songs of "Paradise", the final part of his "Divine Comedy".

In 1321, as the ambassador of Ravenna, Dante went to Venice to resolve differences with his powerful neighbor. On the way back, he falls ill with malaria and soon dies, but even after death his wanderings did not stop.

Dante was buried by the road in front of the cloister of the Church of St. Francis. In the 15th century, the Podestà of Ravenna, Bernardo Bembo, moved the burial to the western part of the cloister.

In 1519, the Florentines, having obtained permission from Pope Leo X, transported the sarcophagus with the ashes of their outstanding citizen to Florence, but already in Florence they discovered that the sarcophagus was empty.

It later turned out that the poet’s remains were hidden by Franciscan monks who did not want to give the ashes of “their poet” to Florence. In 1780, the architect Camillo Morigia erected a tomb in Ravenna, commissioned by the papal legate Luigi Valenti Gonzaga, whose coat of arms is placed above the entrance.

The tomb resembles a small neoclassical temple with a triangular pediment and a small dome. Inside there is a marble sarcophagus, into which Dante's ashes were returned after the construction of this tomb.

Above the sarcophagus is a bas-relief from 1483 by Pietro Lombardo, on which Dante is carved, immersed in reading.

Dante's tomb in Ravenna.

Tombstone at Dante's grave in Florence.

Street Dante Alighieri. Dante's grave was moved from the mausoleum in order to prevent the Florentines from transferring the remains of the poet to their city.

First burial site.

During my first visit to Ravenna, the guide Giacomo, who speaks Russian, by the way, better than many Russians, called Dante Alighieri “the Italian Pushkin.”

There is salt in his words, the fact is that it was largely thanks to the author of the Divine Comedy that Italian became a full-fledged language, and not a set of dialects, because none other than Dante created treatise“On Popular Eloquence,” which became the first full-fledged study of Romance languages ​​in Europe.

Henry Holiday, painting "Dante and Beatrice"

And although, of course, modern Italian schoolchildren studying Dante’s journey through the circles of Hell and the stages of Purgatory in the company of his faithful guide Virgil cannot read The Divine Comedy without explanatory footnotes, Dante’s literary authority in Italy is not subject to discussion. Unlike the same Nevzorov, who publicly declares that all the classics of Russian literature are useless, because they are godlessly outdated, Italians treat Dante’s works with the most sincere respect. Today’s review includes the main Dantean places in Italy.

FLORENCE: DANTE'S HOUSE AND THE CHURCH OF SAINT MARGARETA DE CERCHI

Finding Dante's house in Florence is as easy as shelling pears; signs with the words Casa di Dante are found in every second alley nearby.

Unfortunately, exclaiming: “I see the house where Lenin Dante grew up” would not be entirely correct. The fact is that in this place there really used to be a house belonging to the Alighieri family, where in June 1265 the future creator of the Divine Comedy was born, but time does not spare anything (even the houses of the great Italian poets), so from The original Casa di Dante is no longer left unturned today.

The modern building of the house was erected only in the first decade of the twentieth century, but both inside and out it seems to be a faithful embodiment of the architecture of the late Middle Ages.

The exhibition inside is quite modest: there is a room “like Dante’s”, there are clothes in the style of Dante (of course unoriginal), there is a corner with minzurks, flasks and other tools of alchemists - Alighieri was fond of this noble science.

In the photo: alchemist's tools in Dante's house-museum

There are also interesting illustrations in the house demonstrating how Dante’s contemporaries imagined heaven, purgatory and hell; looking at them is an extremely entertaining activity. Much becomes immediately clear.

In the photo: diagram of the structure of hell in Dante's house-museum

In the photo: the torment of sinners in hell, a painting in Dante's house-museum

The Church of Santa Margherita dei Cerchi, where Dante married his wife Gemma Donati, is another must-see place of pilgrimage for all lovers of the Italian Renaissance. True, the church itself was built long before the Renaissance, in 1032, that is, in the midst of the dark Middle Ages.

In the photo: Church of St. Margaret dei Cerchi

Fans of Dante do not like to remember that the Italian poet married his unloved wife within its stone walls, and for some reason they naively believe that in this church Dante first met the love of his life, Beatrice Portinari. This, by the way, is a complete lie; according to Dante himself, for the first time he saw his A beautiful lady at the age of nine years family holiday at her father's house.

In the photo: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painting “The Meeting of Dante and Beatrice at the Wedding Feast”

But Beatrice’s marriage to her husband actually took place in the Church of St. Margaret, and Dante’s beloved found eternal peace under the stone arches of this ancient Florentine church: Beatrice died at a very young age even by the standards of the Renaissance, she was only 24 years old. For many years now there has been a tradition - girls and boys leave notes with their most secret requests on Beatrice Portinari’s tombstone.

In the photo: Beatrice's tombstone with notes

An evil mockery of fate, but Dante’s legal wife, Gemma Donati, is also buried in Santa Margherita dei Cerchi, although the location of her grave has not been established by historians.

In the photo: the interior decoration of the Church of St. Margaret is very modest

Exhibitions are also often held in the church. children's drawing dedicated to the life of Dante. It is worth noting that sometimes the plots creative works The younger generation is downright phantasmagorical, so in 2011 in the Church of St. Margaret I saw a children’s picture on the theme “Dante and Pinocchio.”

In the photo: an exhibition of children's drawings in the church, in the paintings Dante sometimes even meets Pinocchio

After Florence was captured by the troops of Charles Valois, and power in the republic completely passed into the hands of Dante’s political opponents, the “Black Guelphs,” Alighieri, along with other moderate representatives of the “White Guelph” party, was expelled from his hometown in 1302. He never returned to Florence again.

VERONA. SIGNORIA SQUARE AND PODESTA PALACE

During the years of exile, Dante managed to live in Bolonia, Luniggiana, Casentino, and even spent a year in Paris, but the creator of the Divine Comedy stayed longest in Verona, where he found shelter with the Podesta of the city, Cana Grande I della Scala, the most powerful representative of the Scaliger family.

Can Grande I della Scala was an enlightened ruler; during his rule of Verona, many rejected artists and poets found shelter here, so Dante ended up, to put it modern language, in his element, it is not without reason that Dante dedicated the third part of the Divine Comedy to Cana Grande della Scala.

In the photo: Scaliger Castle in Verona

The Florentine exile lived in the Podesta Palace, that is, in the same palazzo as the representatives of the ruling Scaliger dynasty. Today, in the center of Piazza della Signoria, opposite the Podestà Palace, there is a monument to Dante; the creator of the Divine Comedy sadly looks from a high pedestal at the tourists posing in front of him.

In the photo: Dante's monument in Verona in front of the Podesta Palace

Another Dantean place in Verona is the famous Arena di Verona. The fact is that during the Renaissance, opera divas did not perform on its stage (as today), the Scaligers used the Colosseum to carry out mass executions, often to burn heretics.

On one of public executions Dante was also present; he described his impressions of visiting this “event” in The Divine Comedy.

RAVENNA. DANTE'S LAST REFERRAL

Dante finished the “Divine Comedy” in Ravenna, an Italian town in the province of Emilia-Romagna, where the lord of the city, Guido da Polenta, gave refuge to the poet.

They say in last years His children came to see Dante, but Dante never invited his wife Gemma to Ravenna. The Divine Comedy was completed in the summer of 1321, and on September 14 of the same year the greatest Italian poet passed away.

Until the end of his days, Dante could not completely ignore politics and in the fall of 1321 he went to Venice in order to convince the powerful Venetians not to attack Ravenna. Alas, he did not succeed, and on the way back Alighieri fell ill with malaria, which killed the poet in a few days. In Ravenna, Dante was buried with great honors; the city's podestà, Guido da Polenta, who was a friend of the poet, personally laid a laurel wreath on the deceased's brow.

Dante's tomb, which today is visited by all guests of Ravenna, was erected on the poet's burial site only in 1486, that is, more than a hundred years after the death of Alighieri.

Several decades after the poet's death, the rulers of Florence suddenly realized who they had lost, and began to ask Ravenna to give them Dante's ashes. Ravenna invariably refused all requests, however, in memory of Dante’s hometown, a lamp with Florentine oil burns day and night in the poet’s tomb.

In the photo: Florence - Dante's hometown

Once a year in September, in the month called “Dante’s month,” oil for the funeral lamp is brought to Ravenna from the poet’s beloved Florence, a city where he was never destined to return.

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Yulia Malkova- Yulia Malkova - founder of the website project. In past Chief Editor Internet project elle.ru and editor-in-chief of the website cosmo.ru. I talk about travel for my own pleasure and the pleasure of my readers. If you are a representative of hotels or a tourism office, but we do not know each other, you can contact me by email: [email protected]

Florence was my stepmother...
N. Zabolotsky (over Dante’s tombstone)

One of the most famous Italians - This Dante Alighieri. Poet, philosopher, one of the founders of literary Italian language, an outstanding figure of the Renaissance.
Florence, although it was not merciful to him during his lifetime, after his death and still pays tribute to him with respect and reverence. Therefore, Florence can safely be called the city of Dante.
Dante's House

"D om Dante is located on Santa Margherita Street - it is easily recognized by a large pennant with the inscription “MUSEO CASA DI DANTE”. Siena looked at the pennant hesitantly.
- Is this really Dante's house?
“Not really,” Langdon replied. - Dante lived around the corner. And this is more like...Dante's museum."
(c) "Inferno" Dan Brown

The Dante Alighieri House Museum is located in the old medieval quarter near the Duomo next to the Church of Santa Margherita at the address: Via Santa Margherita 1.
The house looks ancient, and it is impossible to guess that it was built only at the beginning of the 20th century. The area where the house that belonged to the Alighieri family previously stood has been reconstructed. Dante's house was identified quite accurately. Reconstruction of the house and the square with the well began in 1911.
The museum houses manuscripts, clothing and other documents that help to better understand the life of the great poet and the time in which he lived.

Church of Santa Margherita dei Cerchi

No matter what they call this church. Officially, Church of Santa Margherita dei Cerchi, Church of St. Margaret of Antioch. And also the Church of Dante. Or the Church of Beatrice. And even both of them.

The church is located very close to Dante's House, in the next alley. It's inconspicuous, so it's easy to pass by if you don't pay attention to the signs. True, we were unlucky, it was already closed.
What is remarkable about this church and what did it mean to Dante?
According to legend, it was in this church that Dante first met Beatrice Portinari, who became his muse for life. Dante, born in 1265, was then only... nine years old. Betrice - eight. Love, which “moves the suns and luminaries,” entered the poet’s childish soul and captured it completely and forever. Dante's love was unrequited. They only met twice in their lives.
Then Beatrice got married. And at the age of 24 she died from childbirth. By the way, perhaps that is why she was buried in this church, because Saint Margaret is the patroness of women in labor, although she did not save her. This became a real tragedy for the poet. But, as you know, creative people transform grief into creativity. So Dante suffered...
Historians, however, have some doubts that she is buried here (despite the fact that her name is indicated on the tombstone, and opposite Beatrice’s grave there is a tombstone of her beloved nurse Teresa). However, in people's minds this church is a symbol of the love of Dante and Beatrice, and thousands of tourists leave their messages to the writer's muse in a basket near the tombstone.

*photo from the Internet

Besides, Dante got married here. Also buried here is his wife, Gemma Donati, who bore him three children (it is believed that the Church of St. Margaret was the parish church of the Donati family) - Pietro, Jacopo and daughter Antonia.
It is known that the Dante family and the Donati family did not have the same interests (in the Middle Ages they also had their own mafia)))). So Dante married Gemma Donati under family pressure. His wife did not share him in grief or joy. When he was expelled from Florence, she and her children did not leave the city with him.
In fact, I even feel sorry for his wife, she always lived in the shadow of his Beatrice, whom he mostly invented for himself. By the way, full name Dante Durante. I’m not hinting at anything, don’t think about it.)))
Yes, there is no sadder story in the world than the story of Dante and Beatrice.

Monument to Dante

The monument to Dante was erected in the square in front of the Church of Santa Croce in 1865 on the 600th anniversary of the poet.

The 6-meter-high marble statue by sculptor Enrico Pazzi stands on a 7-meter-high plinth with 4 lions.

Dante can also be seen on the façade of the Uffizi Gallery.

*photo from the Internet

Death mask of Dante Alighieri

*photo from the Internet

In the Palazzo Vecchio, on the ground floor, between the Eleonora apartments and the Superiors' Hall, there is Dante's death mask. It was made immediately after the death of the poet, in the 14th century. Although some historians still doubt its authenticity, since death masks at that time were made only for rulers, and only since the 15th century.

Alighieri's death mask was made from plaster plaster by order of the ruler of Ravenna. For some time it was kept in the chapel of Ravenna, where his marble sarcophagus was installed. But since the poet loved Florence with all his soul and strove to visit it, despite the ban from the authorities, it was decided to transfer death mask to his hometown. This was done in 1520.

It is known that the owners of Dante's death mask were different people- the mask first came to the sculptor Giambologna, who later passed it on to the students of the sculptor Pietro Tacca. Until 1830, the owner of the mask was the sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini, who presented it to the English artist Seymour Kirkup. Kirkup is famous for being the author of a copy of the fresco depicting Dante (a copy is kept today in the Borgello Museum). After Seymour Kirkup's death, his widow gave the mask to Italian Senator Alessandro D'Ancona. In 1911, Senator D'Ancona donated Alighieri's death mask to the Palazzo Vecchio, where it remains to this day.

Cenotaph of Dante Alighieri

In 1519, at the request of Michelangelo, Pope Leo X agreed to the transfer of the ashes Dante to Florence but when the coffin was brought to the city, it turned out to be empty. A cenotaph (symbolic tomb) of Dante was built in the Basilica of Santa Croce.

*photo from the Internet

Don't worry, Dante's coffin has been found. As a result, Dante was buried in . For those interested, I wrote about this in great detail (quite an interesting story!).

Bas-relief and sarcophagus on the tomb of Dante. Ravenna. Italy.

In 1302, the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri (Florence, 1265 - Ravenna, September 14, 1321) was expelled from his native Florence for belonging to the White Guelph party. This is a party of rich townspeople. The White Guelphs had real power in Florence and had their own palace, which has survived to this day. Weakening political role empires and papacy in the 15th century. led to the fading of the struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines.

After long wanderings through different cities of Italy in 1316-1317, Dante found refuge in Ravenna at the court of the city's ruler, Guido Novello da Polenta. Next to him were his sons Jacopo and Pietro, his daughter Antonia, as well as close friends. In Ravenna, Dante writes the songs of "Paradise", the final part of his "Divine Comedy".

In 1321, as the ambassador of Ravenna, Dante went to Venice to resolve differences with his powerful neighbor. On the way back, he falls ill with malaria and soon dies, but even after death his wanderings did not stop.
Dante was buried by the road in front of the cloister of the Church of St. Francis. In the 15th century, the ruler of Ravenna, Bernardo Bembo, moved the burial to the western part of the cloister.

In 1519, the Florentines, having obtained permission from Pope Leo X, transported the sarcophagus with the ashes of their outstanding citizen to Florence, but already in Florence they discovered that the sarcophagus was empty.

It later turned out that the poet’s remains were hidden by Franciscan monks who did not want to give the ashes of “their poet” to Florence. In 1780, the architect Camillo Morigia erected a tomb in Ravenna, commissioned by the papal legate Luigi Valenti Gonzaga, whose coat of arms is placed above the entrance.

The tomb resembles a small neoclassical temple with a triangular pediment and a small dome. Inside there is a marble sarcophagus, into which Dante's ashes were returned after the construction of this tomb.
Above the sarcophagus is a bas-relief from 1483 by Pietro Lombardo, on which Dante is carved, immersed in reading.
The sarcophagus is decorated with a Latin epitaph written in 1327 by Bernardo Canaccio

“The rights of the sovereign, the heavens, the waters of the Phlegethon, I sang, walking through my earthly vale. Now my soul has gone to a better world and is blissful, contemplating among the luminaries of its Creator, here I rest, Dante, expelled from the fatherland, my native Florence, my little loving mother. "

Dante's grave was moved from the mausoleum in order to prevent the Florentines from moving the poet's remains to their city.
There was no rest for the ashes of this wonderful poet.

Only at night, leaning towards the valleys,
Counting the centuries to come,
Dante's shadow with an eagle profile
Sings to me about New Life.

Alexander Blok, "Ravenna"

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