reat poet whom he had protected, died in exile. I believe,
however, that the tomb, with an inscription purporting to have been
written by Dante himself, of which I have here given an outline, was
erected at the time of his decease: and, that his portrait, in
bas-relief, was afterwards added by Bernardo Bembo, in the year 1483,
who, at that time was a Senator and Podesta of the Venetian republic."

Byron truly sings:

Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar,
Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore;
Thy factions, in their worse than civil war,
Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore
Their children's children would in vain adore
With the remorse of ages.
There is a tomb in Arqua; rear'd in air,
Pillar'd in their sarcophagus, repose
The bones of Laura's lover.

* * * * *

They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died;
The mountain-village where his latter days
Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride--
An honest pride--and let it be their praise,
To offer to the passing stranger's gaze
His mansion and his sepulchre, both plain
And simply venerable, such as raise
A feeling more accordant with his strain
Than if a pyramid form'd his monumental fame.[12]

[Illustration: (Petrarch's Tomb.)]

"The tomb is in the churchyard at Arqua. Petrarch is laid, for he cannot
be said to be buried, in a sarchophagus of red marble, raised on four
pilasters on an elevated base, and preserved from an association with
meaner tombs. The revolutions of centuries have spared these sequestered
valleys, and the only violence that has been offered to the ashes of
Petrarch was prompted, not by hate, but veneration. An attempt was made
to rob the sarcophagus of its treasure, and one of the arms was stolen
by a Florentine through a rent which is still visible."[13]

The third Memorial is a red porphyry Vase containing the heart of
Canova. It is placed in the great hall of the Academy of Arts at Venice,
beneath the magnificent picture of the Assumption of the Virgin, by
Titian. The vase is ornamented with ormoulu, and bears the inscription
_Cor magni Canovae_, in raised gold letters. M. Duppa describes it
as "a vase fit for a drawing-room, not grand, nor lugubrious: it is
surmounted with a capsule of a poppy, which is a great improvement on a
skull and cross bones."

Canova was not only the greatest sculptor of his own but of any age.
Byron says--