People Who Died or are Buried in Italy

Dante's burial in Ravenna, not Florence, was the fitting capstone to his life. Exiled from Florence while on a diplomatic mission, he spent the next twenty years without a permanent home, dependent on the generosity of patrons.

But he still hoped to return, even though he knew it was increasingly unlikely. As he wrote in Canto XXV of Paradiso:

Se mai continga che 'l poema sacro

al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra,

sì che m'ha fatto per molti anni macro,

vinca la crudeltà che fuor mi serra

del bello ovile ov'io dormi' agnello,

nimico ai lupi che li danno guerra;

con altra voce omai, con altro vello

ritornerò poeta, e in sul fonte

del mio battesmo prenderò 'l cappello . . .

(English translation in following post)

If it should happen . . . if this sacred poem

this work so shared by heaven and earth

that it has made me lean these long years

can ever overcome the cruelty

that bars me from the fair fold where I slept,

a lamb opposed to wolves that war on it,

by then with other voice, with other fleece,

I shall return as poet and put on

at my baptismal font, the laurel crown . . .

Paradiso XXV: 1-9. Unfortunately it never happened.

Never heard of the race-car driver who died at the Grand Prix. Surprising that his name was better known to so many quiz-takers than were the names of Shelley and Keats! Must be Rod Stewart fans....

It would be appropriate to accept the Italian version of these names given the context.