Sack of Dust From Dante’s Tomb Found
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FLORENCE, Italy — Workers reorganizing the bookshelves at a library here found a sack of dust from the tomb of Dante on Monday, 70 years after librarians mislaid it.
The sack held dust scooped from the poet’s tomb at Ravenna during commemorations in 1865, the 600th anniversary of the birth of the Florentine poet.
“The powder within was taken from the carpet on which reposed the casket and the bones of Dante Alighieri,” a weathered, notarized document with the remains attests.
A parchment with the sack bears what it says is an imprint of Dante’s skull.
Dante, Italy’s greatest poet, died in 1321 soon after finishing “Paradise,” the last book of “The Divine Comedy.”
The sack was last seen in 1929, when it was presented before a world congress of librarians.
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