Florence, for the first time Doré's engravings for Dante's Comedy become an immersive work

The Monumental Complex of Santa Croce in Florence presents until January 10, 2022 the project Dante. The Eternal Poet by Felice Limosani aimed at celebrating the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death.

The project, which has the patronage of the MiC’s National Committee for Dante Celebrations, is promoted by the Ministry of the Interior’s Fondo Edifici di culto, the City of Florence and the Opera di Santa Croce together with Felice Limosani Studio with the consent of the Community of Friars Minor Conventual, who are also present in the scientific committee that is coordinated by Enrico Malato, Andrea Mazzucchi, Lucia Battaglia Ricci and Jeffrey Schnapp.

Dante returns to Florence through the language of Digital Human ities in which humanities and digital technologies are intertwined: Limosani is one of its main artistic interpreters. The message of the Comedy is reformulated and declined through technology into a visual and sound sensory score, creating a narrative open to all that leads to a personal, emotional and spiritual experience.

In the Monumental Complex of Santa Croce, a site-specific intervention has been created through which Dante’s great poetry speaks through images. In the Pazzi Chapel, Limosani sets out in search of a new grammar by making Brunelleschi’s architectural space dialogue with art and choral music, written specifically for the work through research and transposition of medieval religious scores.

A century later, Dante. The Eternal Poet restores for the first time in history Gustave Doré ’s cycle of engravings in an animated, set to music, and sensory visual corpus that adds yet another innovation to the poem’s reception history-the digital one.

The Comedy becomes a living book through the digitization of 135 plates of the Divine Comedy illustrated by Gustave Doré (75 from Inferno, 42 from Purgatorio, and 18 from Paradiso. The reworked engravings follow one another in a continuum, in harmony with the architecture of the Pazzi Chapel, creating an unprecedented perceptual dimension of Dante’s otherworldly journey. Visitors are thus taken on an encounter with the great narrative of the Poem and the universality of the Comedy.

Dante, the Eternal Poet is a multimodal project; the artwork led by Felice Limosani has been acquired for long-term safekeeping and dissemination by the Harvard Library in the Digital Collections section. The engravings have been digitized in very high resolution and treated with an artistic re-work that increases the surface area of the images by two-thirds and the perception of the scenes. The original vertical proportion is increased to a horizontal width making the images suitable for the new books usable on screens, computers, tablets and augmented reality and virtual reality applications.

The project involved a group of prestigious supporters sensitive to cultural innovation. TIM as excellence partner and Eni, Intesa San Paolo and Poste Italiane in the role of main partners, have strongly supported the initiative that once again sees Florence as a laboratory of creativity. The exhibition also has the contribution of the Fondazione CR Firenze, the support of the Region of Tuscany and the Chamber of Commerce of Florence, and sees the collaboration of K-Array and Nana Bianca.

Image: Dante, The Eternal Poet by Felice Limosani, Complesso Monumentale di Santa Croce, Florence, 2021.

Florence, for the first time Doré's engravings for Dante's Comedy become an immersive work

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.