Cultural institutions all over Florence come together to celebrate Dante Alighieri’s 700th anniversary in 2021. The calendar of events was presented at Palazzo Vecchio this week with Italian culture minister Dario Franceschini, mayor Dario Nardella and city councillor for culture, Tommaso Sacchi, in attendance.
Nardella spoke of the “very high level programme which brings together highly prestigious initiatives and institutions, starting with the Quirinale, where tomorrow we will inaugurate an exhibition by Massimo Sestini, which will then be in Florence and other international cities, culminating in the Museum of the Italian language that will be formed in Santa Maria Novella. Dante is the symbol and icon of Italian culture in the world, but also has an extraordinary popularity, not reserved for the elite, but available to all”.
Dante 2021 events include:
‘Amor sementa in voi’ by the Culter Association on the subject of botany in the Divine Comedy.
Theatrical work with ‘telepresence’ technology ‘DanXTe’ by the Centro Culturale di Teatro onlus and Scuola Sant’Anna of Pisa.
‘Paradise Now’ by the Virgilio Sieni Company, dance performance in piazza della Signoria.
‘Nel nome di Dante’ by the Associazione degli Italianisti (in collaboration with the Società Dantesca, Società Dante Alighieri and Società italiana viaggiatori) which includes an exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi by the British artist Tom Phillips and ‘On the way with Dante’, a journey between Florence and Ravenna.
The Uffizi galleries, in addition to initiatives outside Florence, will launch an exhibition dedicated to Giuseppe Penone with a tree-shaped installation in piazza della Signoria from March 2021.
The Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Foundation is working on three projects: a reading of the Divine Comedy across 20 evenings at Teatro Goldoni in collaboration with Teatro della Toscana, a performance conducted by Riccardo Muti held in the three cities of Dante (Ravenna, Verona and Florence), and the commission of a piece dedicated to Dante that will be performed on the occasion of the inauguration of the new auditorium, conducted by Zubin Mehta.
The Teatro nazionale della Toscana host ‘Inferno Project’, an international production directed by Bob Wilson, with the participation of INuovi, graduates from the Costa School and students from the L’Oltrarno School. They will also have the “Silent Dante” project, the story of Dante’s life and works, and the film Inferno directed by Mimmo Paladino, in co-production with Marco Balsamo’s Nuovo Teatro.
The COMOEDIA21 project will be a collaboration between the Museo Novecento and the Associazione culturale Mondo Estremo, holding a multi-site public reading of the Divine Comedy.
The University of Florence will host an online conference titled ‘Ghibellin fugitive: Political Italy in Dante’s time’.
The Società Dantesca Italiana will have an exhibition titled ‘Dante and his time in the Florentine libraries’ involving the Medici-Laurenziana, Riccardiana and Nazionale libraries.
The Accademia delle Arti del Disegno provides a prize dedicated to young artists under 40 who will try their hand at the theme of Dante’s exile and will also host the exhibition named ‘Dante in contemporary art’.
The State Archives of Florence are preparing a documentary exhibition on Dante’s human and political story.
The Accademia della Crusca will have various exhibitions including a Dante exhibition to be held in the cloisters of Santa Maria Novella as a preview to the upcoming museum of the Italian language, and a word linked to the poet every day during the Dante year on the Academy website, with a brief explanation. A project is also foreseen in the garden of the Medici Villa of Castello.
The National Institute of Renaissance Studies is organizing three study days between the summer and autumn of 2021 on the forms of reception of Dante’s work and on the relationship of the poet with philosophers.
The Opera di Santa Croce will host a multimedia exhibition titled ‘Dante Poeta Eterno’ curated by Felice Limosani.
The Galileo Museum and the Uffizi Galleries have organized an exhibition titled ‘From Hell to the Empire – Dante’s world from science to poetry’.
The Fondazione Franco Zeffirelli have planned a cross-referencing of Dante’s words and passages from the script of the film on Hell never made by the director as well as a multimedia exhibition.
The Dante Alighieri Society will host ‘Dante’s presence in the world’ and ‘Dante projects yesterday and today’ in collaboration with the Accademia della Crusca.
Two exhibitions will be on display at the Bargello museum, in collaboration with the University of Florence: ‘Honorable and historic citizen of Florence’ (March-July 2021), and ‘The admirable vision – Dante and Comedy in the symbolist imagination’ (September 2021-January 2022).
The Casa di Dante Museum will host a multimedia display and a night projection mapping cycle.
Fondazione Casa Buonarroti will organize a series of talks on the links between Dante and Machiavelli.
