STATUE OF DANTE
The statue of Dante, standing in Meridian Hill Park, was given to the National Capital by Chevalier Carlo Barsotti, editor of Il Progresso Italo-Americano, in behalf of the Italians of the United States in commemoration of the six hundredth anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, and unveiled on December 1, 1921. It is in bronze, 12 feet high, and is the work of Commendatore Ettore Ximenes, sculptor, of Rome. The artist has represented Dante in the gown of a scholar and crowned with a laurel wreath.
The statue received an appropriate landscape setting upon the completion of the lower garden of Meridian Hill Park.