More than 100 madonnarians draw the Divine Comedy for the traditional Fair of Grace in its 50th edition

Every year, on August 14 and 15, the village of Grazie di Curtatone (Mantua) becomes the scene of an extraordinary event that attracts thousands of visitors from all over the world: theNational Meeting of Madonnari, now in its 50th edition. More than 100 artists, armed only with colored chalks and a boundless passion for art, create sacred works in the churchyard of the Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of Grace. The theme of this 50th edition of the event was Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy.

The project, titled I Madonnari dipingere la Divina Commedia (The Madonnari paint the Divine Comedy), was realized thanks to the collaboration with the Dante Alighieri Society, which has been promoting Italian language and culture around the world since 1889. During the event, 135 artists - about 40 of whom came from abroad - distributed themselves on the Sanctuary’s forecourt, exceptionally divided into three sectors, corresponding to the three cantiches of Dante’s poem: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. The artists thus transformed the forecourt into a visual journey through Dante’s masterpiece, guiding visitors along a path evoking the three stages of the otherworldly journey undertaken by the Supreme Poet.

The link between the Divine Comedy and Mantua is particularly significant: the city plays a crucial role in Dante’s work, especially through the figure of Virgil, the great Mantuan poet who accompanies Dante through Inferno and Purgatory. But that’s not all: in Canto XX of the Inferno, the sorceress Manto, the legendary founder of Mantua, is recounted, and the courtly poet Sordello da Goito, another symbol of the Mantuan tradition, also appears in Purgatory.

The winning Madonnari Masters of the 50th National Madonnari Meeting are Ignazio De Jesus Chavez Salinas for the Inferno cantica, Liliana Confortini for the Purgatorio cantica, and Michela Bogoni for the Paradiso cantica.

Photo: Antichissima Fiera delle Grazie

More than 100 madonnarians draw the Divine Comedy for the traditional Fair of Grace in its 50th edition

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