THE Prophecy of Dante was written at Ravenna, during the month of June, 1819, "to gratify" the Countess Guiccioli. Before she left Venice in April she had received a promise from Byron to visit her at Ravenna. "Dante's tomb, the classical pinewood," and so forth, had afforded a pretext for the invitation to be given and accepted, and, at length, when she was, as she imagined, "at the point of death," he arrived, better late than never, "on the Festival of the Corpus Domini" which fell that year on the tenth of June. Horses and books were left behind at Venice, but he could occupy his enforced leisure by "writing something on the subject of Dante". A heightened interest born of fuller knowledge, in Italian literature and Italian politics, lent zest to this labour of love, and, time and place conspiring, he composed "the best thing he ever wrote", his Vision (or Prophecy) of Dante.
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