DANTE’S TOMB

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 August 1933, Page 11

DANTE’S TOMB

A ZONE OF SILENCE Dante’s tomb in Ravenna, Italy, is going to be isolated from the noise and bustle of modern civilisation. The scheme is to create around the famous monument a zone of silence and dignity, allowing no traffic to pass through the Via Dante and the Via Guida Novallo. All the old buildings and houses facing or adjoining the Piazza Byron are to be demolished and the girls’ college, which occupies the old Franciscan cloisters, will be evacuated. An arch is to be erected to form a kind of vestibule before the small temple where the poet’s remains lie, and the monument of Garibaldi in the Piazza Dante will be removed and erected elsewhere. Senator Corrado Ricci has drawn up a plan for the restoration of the Rizzetti Palace, where the poet Byron stayed, but it will be left in its present place. As early as last summer Premier Mussolini commented favourably on the project, and promised that the State would contribute towards the expense, and now the Higher Council of Antiquities and Fine Arts has given its formal approval.