Florence, guided tours on the trail of Dante in Santa Maria Novella

On the occasion of the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death, the Florentine Civic Museums and MUS.E, in collaboration with Opera di Santa Maria Novella and the Ministry of the Interior’s Fondo Edifici di Culto, are organizing a series of thematic guided tours focusing on the Supreme Poet within the Santa Maria Novella complex. It will start on Sunday, September 12, and run through Sunday, December 26. The Dominican convent is in fact one of the places where Dante deepened his studies of philosophy following the death of Beatrice, claiming to have gone “there where she showed herself truthfully, that is, in the schools of the religious and at the disputations of the philosophers.”

The scheduled Dante visits will provide an opportunity to read the historical and artistic events of Santa Maria Novella through a special lens, which will lead the public to appreciate places and works, while at the same time delving into interesting aspects of the figure of the poet, his life and work. Shortly after Dante’s death, precisely in 1335, “the books or poetic libelli composed in the vernacular by he who is called Dante” were banned inside the convent of Santa Maria Novella (a testament to how widespread they evidently were), but about two decades later, on the walls of the monumental Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas of the Strozzi family in Mantua, Nardo di Cione frescoed the Last Judgment, Paradise andHell, offering his contemporaries one of the earliest depictions of the circles, circles and hellpools as described in the Commedia. A portrait of Dante also appears, similar to the portrait that can be recognized in the Cappellone degli Spagnoli, an ancient chapter house, by Andrea di Bonaiuto, some years later.

Tours will be held at 3:30 p.m. and will last an hour and a quarter.

Access to the complex is free for residents of the City of Florence, disabled and accompanying persons, members of ICOM, ICOMOS and ICCROM, tour guides, and children under 11; guided tours cost 2.50 euros for residents of Florence Metropolitan City and 5 euros for nonresidents, in addition to the entrance fee to the complex (full 7.50 euros, reduced 11 to 18 years 5 euros).
Places are limited; reservations required. Reservations will be accepted from the Monday before the chosen Sunday.

Pictured is Andrea di Bonaiuto, fresco in the Cappellone degli Spagnoli, Santa Maria Novella.

Florence, guided tours on the trail of Dante in Santa Maria Novella

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