Dante resided several years at Ravenna, with the noble-minded Guido da Polenta, who, of his own accord, had invited him thither, and who, to the last moment of his life, made him feel no other burden in his service than gratitude for benefits bestowed with such a grace as though the giver, and not the receiver, were laid under obligation. By him being sent on an embassy to Venice, with the government of which Guido had an unhappy dispute, Dante not only failed to accomplish a reconciliation, but was even refused an audience, and compelled to return by land for fear of the enemy's fleet, which had already commenced hostilities along the coast. He arrived at Ravenna broken-hearted with the disappointment, and died soon afterwards,--according to his epitaph, on the 14th of September, 1321, though some authorities date his demise in July preceding. The remains of the illustrious poet were buried with a splendour honourable to his name and worthy of his patron, who himself pronounced the funeral eulogium of his departed guest. His own countrymen, who had hardened their hearts against justice and humanity, in resistance of his return amongst them while living, soon after his death became sensible of their folly, and too late repented it. Embassy on embassy, during the two succeeding centuries, failed to recover the bones of their outcast fellow-citizen from his hospitable entertainers; and Florence has less to boast of in having given him birth, than Ravenna for having given him burial. One of those fruitless negotiations was conducted under the auspices of Leo X., and more illustriously sanctioned by Michael Angelo, an enthusiastic admirer of Dante, who offered to adorn the shrine, had the desired relics been obtained. The mighty sculptor,--himself the Dante of marble, simple, severe, sublime in style, and preternatural almost from the fulness of reality condensed in his ideal forms,--in many of his works, both of the chisel and the pencil, introduced figures suggested by images of the poet, or directly embodying such. Most conspicuous among these were the statues of Leah and Rachel, from the twenty-seventh canto of the "Purgatorio," on the monument of pope Julius II. His own copy of the "Divina Commedia" was embellished down the margin with sketches from the subjects of the text; and, had it been preserved, would surely have been classed with the most precious of those books for which collectors are eager to give ten times or more their weight in gold. The fate of this volume was not less singular than its good fortune; after having been made inestimable by the hand of Michael Angelo, it was lost at sea, and thus added to the treasures of darkness one of the richest spoils that ever went down from the light.