Stefano dell' Uliva in Ravenna, ten
gold florins He was thus in communication with Dante's daughter so
that when he came to write the Vita di Dante, probably in 1356-1357,
he was certainly in possession of facts. It will be well then if we
state to begin with in his own words what he has told us of the years
Dante spent in Ravenna.
But first as to the date of Dante's coming to Ravenna. Boccaccio would
seem to place it immediately after the death of Henry VII. in 1313. To
modern scholarship this has seemed incredible for various reasons, and
it prefers to allow Dante to visit Verona first and to come to Ravenna
in 1317. Yet let us hear Boccaccio.
He begins by telling us that the too early death of the emperor, who
was poisoned, as is thought, at Buonconvento in southern Tuscany on S.
Bartholomew's day in 1313, cast every one of his faction into despair
"and Dante most of all; wherefore no longer going about to seek his
own return from exile he passed the heights of the Apennines and
departed to Romagna where his last day, that was to put an end to all
his toils, awaited him.
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