Dante Alighieri has been dead for 700 years. The date of his death, September 14, 1321, is one of the few facts we know about him. He died of a fever while on a diplomatic mission to Venice, scholars believe, and was buried with “great honour” at the church of San Pier Maggiore in Ravenna.
Dante had been expelled from his native Florence two decades earlier, in 1302, on charges of corruption and embezzlement. The allegations were mostly false yet Dante never again set foot in the city. To this day, Florentines remain painfully conscious that Dante died in exile and that his dust deserves a proper burial in Florence. Seven hundred years on, he has still not moved from Ravenna.
