by the pope". They were then recovered from the basilica shortly after the earthquake. While inspecting the earthquake damage during a 28 April 2009 visit to the Aquila, Pope Benedict XVI visited Celestine's remains in the badly damaged Santa Maria di Collemaggio and left the woolen pallium he wore during his papal inauguration in April 2005 on his glass casket as a gift. Benedict XVI would go on to become the first pope since Celestine to voluntarily resign of his own initiative. To mark the 800th anniversary of Celestine's birth, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed the Celestine year from 28 August 2009 through 29 August 2010. Benedict XVI visited the Sulmona Cathedral, near Aquila, on 4 July 2010 as part of his observance of the Celestine year and prayed before the altar consecrated by Celestine containing his relics on 10 October 1294. His entry in the Martyrologium Romanum for 19 May reads as follows: In literature A persistent tradition identifies Celestine V as the nameless figure Dante Alighieri sees among those in the antechamber of Hell, in the enigmatic verses: The first commentators to make this identification included Dante's son Jacopo Alighieri, followed by Graziolo Bambaglioli in 1324. The identification is also considered probable by recent scholars (e.g., Hollander, Barbara Reynolds, Simonelli, Padoan). Petrarch was moved to defend Celestine vigorously against the accusation of cowardice and some modern scholars (e.g., Mark Musa) have suggested Dante may have meant someone else (Esau, Diocletian and Pontius Pilate have been variously suggested). In 1346, Petrarch declared in his De vita solitaria that Celestine's refusal was a virtuous example of solitary life. Pope Celestine V is referenced in Chapter 88 of Dan Brown's Angels & Demons, where he is controversially referenced as an example of a murdered pope. Brown writes that an X-ray of his tomb "revealed a ten-inch nail driven into the Pope's skull." While the reference to the X-ray is fictitious (no X-ray has ever been conducted on Celestine's tomb), it has been indeed alleged that Celestine was murdered, possibly by order of his successor, Pope Boniface VIII; however, there is no historical evidence of this. The life of Pope Celestine V is dramatised in the plays L'avventura di un povero cristiano (The Story of a Humble Christian) by Ignazio Silone in 1968 and Sunsets and Glories by Peter Barnes in 1990. His life is the subject of the short story Brother of