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In addition to his literary efforts, he remained active both as a politician and a diplomat. He was tireless in his efforts to return to his beloved Florence. All his endeavors to return to his home were thwarted. Dante accepted an invitation from the ruler of Ravenna to stay in that city. It was in Ravenna that the poet finished the last of his great works and he died in 1321.<ref>Raffa, p. 7</ref> He was buried with high honors in Ravenna, and Ravenna has never returned his remains to his native Florence.

[[File: Dante Two.jpg|200px|thumb|left| A statue of Dante in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery]]

The Florentine’s first great work was La Vita Nova (The New Life) which is a series of poems and short prose pieces related to his beloved Beatrice. He also wrote the Banquet a series of longer poems. Dante was also a great prose writer, and he wrote the unfinished De vulgar eloquent ("On the Eloquence of Vernacular"), which argued for the development of an Italian literary language.