I have deemed it appropriate to insert the verses at this place. But inasmuch as only one of the many poems composed would have been engraven on the marble, I think it is necessary to subjoin but one here. Wherefore, having examined them all, I consider the most worthy in form and thought to be the fourteen lines written by Master Giovanni del Virgilio, at that time a great and famous poet of Bologna, and an intimate friend of Dante. These are the verses:
Theologus Dantes, nullius dogmatis expers,
Quod foveat claro philosophia sinu:
Gloria musarum, vulgo gratissimus auctor,
Hic jacet, et fama pulsat utrumque polum:
Qui loca defunctis gladiis regnumque gemellis
Distribuit, laicis rhetoricisque modis.
Pascua Pieriis demum resonabat avenis;
Atropos heu letum[1] livida rupit opus.
Huic ingrata tulit tristem Florentia fructum,
Exilium, vati patria cruda suo.
Quem pia Guidonis gremio Ravenna Novelli
Gaudet honorati continuisse ducis,
Mille trecentenis ter septem Numinis annis,
Ad sua septembris idibus astra redit.
- ↑ For laetum
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