A Visit to John Keats's Final Resting Place

Who are the "illustrious dead" buried in Rome's "Non-Catholic Cemetery"? The English poet John Keats, Beat poet Gregory Corso, and even the philosopher Antonio Gramsci. The BBC voyages to Rome to consider Keats's final resting place.

In the winter of 1821, in the heart of Rome, in a house by the Spanish Steps, a young Englishman lay dying.

He was the poet, John Keats. He had tuberculosis, and with death approaching he asked a friend to go and inspect the Protestant Cemetery, where he would be buried.

His companion was able to report back that it would be a fine place for the poet's bones to lie, and all these years on, it remains a rather beautiful setting.

As soon as you step through its gates, the clamour of the city traffic starts to fade. And as you walk further in, the air fills with sound of birds, and the scent of flowers. The sun slants through the tall trees and falls on the ranks of headstones.

They rise up a slope towards a wall that's nearly 2,000 years old - a wall that was once part of the defences of ancient Rome.

This place is now known as the Non-Catholic Cemetery. And when I visited early on a fine, spring morning it seemed to be sunk in a deep peace.

I took the path that leads to a far corner, and to Keats's grave.

On the grass around it there was a bright carpet of white daisies. But the words on the gravestone captured the gloom and sense of failure that engulfed the poet in his last days.

He was only 25, and the world was yet to recognise his genius. He felt he'd made no mark.

Read more in the BBC's news magazine.