Florence eventually came to regret Dante's exile, and the city made
repeated requests for the return of his remains. The custodians of the
body in Ravenna refused, at one point going so far as to conceal the
bones in a false wall of the monastery. Nonetheless, a tomb was built
for him in Florence in 1829, in the Basilica of Santa Croce. That tomb has been empty
ever since, with Dante's body remaining in Ravenna, far from the land
he had loved so dearly. The front of his tomb in Florence reads Onorate l'altissimo poeta—which roughly translates as "Honor the most exalted poet". The phrase is a quote from the fourth canto of the Inferno, depicting Virgil's welcome as he returns among the great ancient poets spending eternity in limbo. The ensuing line, L'ombra sua torna, ch'era dipartita ("his spirit, which had left us, returns"), is poignantly absent from the empty tomb.
Italy's first dreadnought battleship was completed in 1913 and named Dante Alighieri in honor of him.
On April 30, 1921, in honor of the 600th anniversary of Dante's death, Pope Benedict XV promulgated an encyclical named In praeclara summorum, calling him one "of the many celebrated geniuses of whom the Catholic faith can boast" and the "pride and glory of humanity".[31]
In 2007, a reconstruction of Dante's face was undertaken in a
collaborative project. Artists from Pisa University and engineers at the
University of Bologna at Forlì constructed the model, portraying Dante's features as somewhat different from what was once thought.[32][33]
In 2008, the Municipality of Florence officially apologized for expelling Dante 700 years earlier.[34][35][36][37]
A celebration was held in 2015 for the 750th anniversary of his birth.[38][39]
