SPLENDID SPECIMEN OF ILLUSTRIOUS PROVENANCE: FROM THE LIBRARY OF LORD BYRON , one of the most attentive and passionate readers of Dante in the nineteenth century, whose veneration contributed to creating the Romantic Myth of Dante.
In September 1822 Byron moved to Genoa, so the attestation reported here seems to be valid. Here he enthusiastically accepted his nomination as a member of the committee for Greek independence formed in London in the spring of 1823, and, having decided, after some hesitation due to health reasons, to lead the revolt, he embarked for Cephalonia from Genoa on 15 July 1823. He died in Greece at Missolonghi on 19 April 1824, perhaps of meningitis.

"The knowledge that B. (1788-1824) had of Italy and Italian literature must also be extended to Dante's work, which he recalled several times, sometimes literally translated, often echoed in characters and stylistic movements. But, it must be immediately pointed out, more than to the poem itself, B.'s admiration went to the figure of Dante seen in the romantic key of the innocent exile, the patriot, the poet of freedom; his access to a complete understanding and evaluation of the poem was limited by the absence in him of a profound religious spirituality: a defect which, among other things, led him to exalt almost exclusively the pathetic episodes of D. and, in general, those most in keeping with his strongly romantic sensibility.
Three verses from the fifth canto of the Inferno (121, 120, 105) are placed as the motto of the three cantos of the Corsair (1814); in Child Harold's Pilgrimage (1818) B. lashes out against the "ungrateful Florence", praising instead Ravenna, which welcomed the exile. Dante's memories are more frequent in Don Juan (1819), where, in addition to citing Ugolino (canto II, stanza 83), Beatrice (III 10), the dark forest (VI 85), the verse Lasciate ogni speranza (XVII 116) and some other simple references, the beginning of Pg VIII (III 108) is translated literally. In 1820 B. translated the episode of Francesca da Rimini in its entirety, respecting the terza rima; and he apparently also thought of a tragedy on the subject. His major work inspired by the Italian poet, The Prophecy of Dante, dedicated to Countess Guiccioli, dates back to the following year: a poem in terza rima of 650 verses gathered in 4 cantos, in which Dante himself, having finished the Comedy, speaks prophetically, shortly before dying, of the future vicissitudes of Italy up to the Risorgimento. It is precisely in this work that B. dresses D. in the guise of a hero rebellious to tyranny however understood, of an unheard prophet of political renewal, of the first hopeful of Italian unity. Finally, in the Journal of 1821, B. defends Dante's work from a, however poorly understood, limitation contained in one of the Readings of the History of Literature by Federico Schlegel, briefly exalting the sweetest figures of the Comedy, Francesca, Pia, Beatrice, and the paternal feeling of Ugolino." (Enciclopedia Dantesca on line, sub vocis ).