The largest exhibition ever dedicated in Italy to Tolkien and his Middle-earth is coming to Rome

The National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome is dedicating a major exhibition to John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, creator of the famous Middle-earth epic, from Nov. 16, 2023 to Feb. 11, 2024, fifty years after the death of the famous writer and the first Italian edition of The Hobbit. The exhibition entitled TOLKIEN. Man, Professor, Author aims to be the first exhibition of this size ever dedicated in Italy to one of the most widely read authors on the planet. This one aims to tell for the first time the story of the man, father and friend; the academic, author of studies and publications still fundamental today in the study of literature in Old and Middle English; the storyteller and sub-creator of Middle-earth. There will also be space for all that he inspired in art, music and the world of comics.

It will be a multifaceted exhibition of autograph manuscripts, letters, memorabilia, photographs and artwork inspired by the literary visions of a unique and multifaceted author. A man of his time, novelist, linguist and philologist, Tolkien will be told in his artistic and human complexity.

The exhibition will also focus on his relationship with Italy: “I am in love with Italian, and I feel rather lost without the possibility of trying to speak it,” reads one of his letters, and there will be no shortage of evidence of his trip to Venice and Assisi in 1955; as well as his many contacts, direct and indirect, with Italian scholars and intellectuals.

Space will also be given to film adaptations old and new, from Ralph Bakshi’s animated film to director Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which was able to portray on the big screen one of the most ambitious and popular sagas in world literature, winning seventeen Academy Awards.

Conceived and promoted by the Ministry of Culture with the collaboration of Oxford University, the exhibition is produced by C.O.R. Creare Organizzare Realizzare with the curatorship of Oronzo Cilli and the co-curatorship and organization of Alessandro Nicosia. Several international institutions are involved: the Vatican Apostolic Archives, the Bibliothèque Alpha of the University of Liège, the University of Reading, theOratory of San Filippo Neri in Birmingham, the Venerable English College in Rome, the Tolkien Society, the Arnoldo and Alberto Mondadori Foundation, the Benedetto Croce Library Foundation, the Civic Library of Biella, the Astrolabio-Ubaldini and Bompiani publishing houses, the Greisinger Museum in Jenins and Warner Bros Discovery.

The catalog accompanying the exhibition contains contributions by Adriano Monti Buzzetti Colella, Giuseppe Pezzini, Emma Giammattei, Francesco Nepitello, Chiara Bertoglio, Gianluca Comastri, Father Guglielmo Spirito, Fabio Celoni, Davide Martini, Roberta Tosi, Salvatore Santangelo, Stefano Giuliano, Claudio Mattia Serafin, Gianfranco de Turris, Paolo Paron and Domenico Dimichino.

Rome will be the first stage of a journey that will continue in 2024 in other Italian cities. Thanks to the Ministry of Culture, which promoted and supported its planning, it will be possible to visit the exhibition at no extra cost by showing the museum entrance ticket.

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Last admission 45 minutes before closing.

Image: Roger Garla, Middle Earth.

The largest exhibition ever dedicated in Italy to Tolkien and his Middle-earth is coming to Rome

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