Dante's bones and the sarcophagus emptied in secret
Dante died in Ravenna, on Italy's Adriatic coast, in the night between 13 and 14 September 1321, and Florence, the city that had exiled him, never quite accepted it. In 1519 Pope Leo X allowed the Florentines to collect the poet's bones, with Michelangelo commissioned for the funeral monument. But the Franciscan friars of Ravenna got there first: through a hole cut from the cloister they had emptied the sarcophagus and hidden the remains. The box, walled up in the oratory next door, resurfaced by pure chance on 27 May 1865, found by a mason during building works. The bones are still in Ravenna.