Here is the great exhibition on Dante Alighieri in Forli: 300 works to tell the story of the poet

Scheduled from April 1 to July 11 at the San Domenico Museums in Forlì is the major exhibition Dante. The Vision of Art, curated by Antonio Paolucci and Fernando Mazzocca, which aims to illustrate the figure of Dante Alighieri (Florence, 1265 - Ravenna, 1321), author of the Divine Comedy and father of the Italian language, in a 360-degree way, through an exhibition of about three hundred works from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century: including creations by Giotto, Beato Angelico, Filippino Lippi, Michelangelo, Tintoretto, through to Giulio Aristide Sartorio, Umberto Boccioni, Felice Casorati and other contemporary masters. About fifty works, including paintings, sculptures and drawings will arrive from the Uffizi (among them, a corpus of themed drawings by Michelangelo and Zuccari, the celebrated portraits of the Poet by Andrea del Castagno and Cristofano dell’ Altissimo, thenineteenth century with Nicola Monti, Pio Fedi, Giuseppe Sabatelli, Raffaello Sorbi and Vogel von Volgestein’s masterpiece Episodes of the Divine Comedy), which is organizing the exhibition together with the Fondazione Cassa dei Risparmi di Forlì, on the occasion of the seventh centenary of the poet’s death.

The result of a robust partnership between the two entities, the exhibition also aims to represent a symbol of redemption and rebirth not only of our country, but of the art world and the spirit of culture and civilization it represents. The project is the brainchild of Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi Galleries, and Gianfranco Brunelli, director of major exhibitions at the Fondazione Cassa dei Risparmi di Forlì.

The choice of Forlì as the setting for the exhibition is part of a strategy to enhance the value of a place and a territory that constitutes not only a natural bridge between Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna. But not only: Forlì is in fact a city linked to Dante, since it was here that the poet found refuge, having left Arezzo in the fall of 1302, with the Ordelaffi family, the Ghibelline lords of the city. To Forlì he also returned, occasionally, later.

The exhibition covers a time span from the 13th century to the 20th century. For the first time, the intimate relationship between Dante and art is fully analyzed and reconstructed, presenting the artists who have taken on the great challenge of rendering in images the visionary power of Dante, his works and in particular the Divine Comedy, or have dealt with themes similar to those of Dante’s, or have drawn from him single episodes or characters, disengaging them from the whole story and making them live in themselves.

The exhibition aims to lead visitors to discover the growing legend of Dante through the centuries. The Poet’s early critical fortune will be shown through early editions of the Comedy and some of the most important illuminated Codices of the 14th and 15th centuries. Special sections will be devoted to his fame in the Renaissance season, the neoclassical and pre-Romantic rediscovery of his genius, and Romantic and 20th-century interpretations of his work and legacy; separate chapters will be devoted to thewide-ranging and successful portraiture devoted to Alighieri in the history of art, to the theme of the relationship between Dante and classical culture, and to the figure of Beatrice, whom the Poet elevates to an emblem of the renewal of art and of his own positive passions. Protagonists of the exhibition will also be the multiple depictions that some of the greatest artists have offered throughout the history of Dante’s narrative of the Last Judgment, Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. The tour will conclude with masterpieces inspired in their composition by the XXXIII canto of Paradise .

Loans will arrive for the exhibition from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, the National Gallery in Sofia, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden, the Museum of Art in Toledo, Musée des Beaux-Art in Nancy, Tours, and Anger; and then from the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome, the Galleria Borghese, the Vatican Museums, the Capodimonte Museum, and countless Italian and foreign museums.

“In this period,” declares the director of the Uffizi, Eike D. Schmidt, “it is important to find in Dante not only a symbol of national unity, but also a spiritual comfort and a common cultural reference. The exhibition will be an opportunity to rethink the father of the Italian language and will offer material to reflect on the importance that Dante’s work (his verses, characters and events narrated by him) still holds in our times.”

“I think I can say that if there is a truly comprehensive and truly national exhibition, in Dante’s centennial year, the one in Forlì registers to be so,” says Gianfranco Brunelli, director of Major Exhibitions at the Fondazione Cassa dei Risparmi di Forlì. Not only the Comedy is traced along the reflections that art has drawn from it, but all of Dante. A journey of art and a journey in art that allows us to review Dante, his time and ours."

Image: Giovanni Mochi, Dante Presents Giotto to Guido da Ravenna (1855; oil on canvas, 84.5 x 108 cm; Florence, Uffizi Galleries, Pitti Palace Gallery of Modern Art)

Here is the great exhibition on Dante Alighieri in Forli: 300 works to tell the story of the poet

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