"The magnanimous cavalier placed the dead body of Dante, adorned with
poetic insignia, upon a funeral bier, and had it borne on the
shoulders of his most distinguished citizens to the place of the Minor
Friars in Ravenna, with such honour as he deemed worthy of such a
corpse And here, public lamentations as it were having followed him so
far, he had him placed in a stone chest, wherein he still lieth. And
returning to the house in which Dante lately lived, according to the
Ravennese custom he himself delivered an ornate and long discourse
both in commendation of the profound knowledge and the virtue of the
deceased, and in consolation of his friends whom he had left in
bitterest grief. He purposed, had his estate and his life endured, to
honour him with so choice a tomb that if never another merit of his
had made him memorable to those to come, this tomb should have
accomplished it.
"This laudable intent was in brief space of time made known to certain
who in those days were most famous for poetry in Ravenna; whereon each
one for himself, to show his own power and to bear witness to the
goodwill he had to the dead poet, and to win the grace and love of the
signore, who was known to have it at heart, made verses which, if
placed as epitaph on the tomb that was to be, should with due praises
teach posterity who lay therein.
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