Bologna Archaeological Museum opens Agora inspired by the squares of ancient Greece

The Civic Archaeological Museum of Bologna has opened from July 1 a real square inside, a new space inspired by the ancient squares of the Greek poleis and intended for meeting and discussion. TheAgora Archaeology, this is the name of the new environment, intends to be an archaeological square necessary to maintain and strengthen the link between the city, its heritage, citizens and visitors, through dossier exhibitions, meetings, guided tours, workshops.

Inspired by the main places of city life where the people of ancient Greece gathered for assemblies and markets, this new space carved out of an area of the Exhibition Hall located on the ground floor intends to integrate itself into the social and urban fabric. Set up at the same time as the closure (as of June 28, 2021 and for about ten months) of the exhibition spaces located on the second floor, for an extensive fireproofing adaptation work commissioned by the Maintenance Sector of the Municipality of Bologna, this initiative reappropriates the temporarily inaccessible collections, putting them at the center of new dissemination and enhancement activities.

Several areas coexist in the archaeological square with different functions depending on the various initiatives planned, accessible during the museum’s opening hours. The meeting area will host one of the museum’s most significant or curious objects each month, and will become the center of weekly meetings, every Thursday at 5:30 p.m. starting July 8, in the company of an archaeologist.
The “open space” will be the venue dedicated to cultural mediation and accessibility, the place where Agora Archaeology can best manifest its inclusive vocation. Finally, the exhibition space will be dedicated to dossier exhibitions. Museum objects, read and presented in a new perspective, will inspire stories and tales.

Below is the programming

Dossier exhibition "...that makes me sovvenir of the ancient world. Archaeology and Divine Comedy
July 1-November 1, 2021
Curated by Marinella Marchesi
The first exhibition project is dedicated to Dante Alighieri in the year of the celebration of 700 years since his death. Through materials of various provenances, all belonging to the museum’s holdings, the path analyzes characters and myth-historical traditions of the ancient world, taken up and reworked in a Christian key in the construction of the Afterlife of the Divine Comedy. Indeed, the narrative of the journey that Dante undertakes on March 25, 1300 through the three otherworldly realms is a perfect blend of cultural, philosophical, theological and literary influences and contributions that come not only from the classical world - those that are certainly most evident - but also from the eastern areas of the Mediterranean basin, filtered through Jewish, Greco-Roman and Christian traditions and later medieval doctrines.
The exhibition opens with a quick look at the complex system of the Egyptian Afterlife, in whose regions the journey of the soul and at the same time the night journey of the sun took place, most likely known to Dante only indirectly, perhaps even through the so-called “Visions of the Afterlife,” which were well spread in the Middle Ages. This is followed by the images and stories of those who preceded Dante on the otherworldly journey: the protagonists of catabasis, that is, of descents to the Underworld, and of encounters with the souls of the departed who populate Greek and Latin literature and in whose footsteps the supreme poet also sets out, recalling them all in the course of his narrative, in different ways. Closely related to these are the infernal guardians and judges, whose depictions, beginning in the ancient world, have traversed the artistic expressions of all ages. Mostly hybrid and monstrous beings drawn from classical mythology, already present in the Greco-Roman Afterlife, they undergo a transformation in Dante’s Inferno in a demonic and symbolic key. Finally, a concluding overview is devoted to the numerous pagan deities that Dante reinterprets through the gaze of Christianity, in the profound conviction that behind the classical myths were hidden truths that could be interpreted in a Christian way: these are those deities to whom he appeals for inspiration in the writing of his poem - the Muses and Apollo - and those who give their names to the planets associated with seven of the nine heavens into which Paradise is divided.
Admission: museum ticket
Reservation required: musarcheoscuole@comune.bologna.it by 6:30 p.m. the day before the activity, indicating the number of people and a telephone number.
Information: tel. 331 6139089 (Thursdays h 10 a.m.-12 p.m.)
Cost of participation: museum ticket (free guided tour)

Open Space. Workshops and accessibility
From July 1, 2021
Agora Archaeology was created with an inclusive vocation toward people with physical and sensory disabilities. Copies of selected artifacts will allow an initial approach to the cultural content of the museum’s collections, now closed to the public, as an invitation to return when the rooms are reopened and offer a new path related to accessibility. The narrative from the copies will be suitable for all audiences, including families with children.The accessibility space will be usable thanks to the mediation of the young operators of the MIA - Musei Inclusivi e Aperti project, an innovative project promoted by the Istituzione Bologna Musei and financed as part of the PON Metro 2014-2020 program with the aim of realizing inclusion actions, unprecedented and experimental ways with which to create connections between the territory and museums, between the social fabric and places that by their nature make culture.
Mediator’s hours of presence: Mondays and Wednesdays h 10am-1pm; Thursdays and Fridays h 3:30pm-6:30pm; Saturdays h 10am-1pm / 3:30pm-6:30pm.Entrance: museum ticket

Meeting space. Words in the Square: Agora Archaeology tells the museum
July 8, 2021 - April 7, 2022
Every Thursday at 5:30 p.m. the Agora comes alive with stories and tales featuring known and lesser-known objects from the permanent collections. Thirty minutes in the company of an expert to relive together memories of the ancient world and their inexhaustible connections with the great themes of contemporaneity. The cycle is divided into thematic modules with repeated meetings alternating fortnightly, from July 8, 2021 until April 7, 2022.
Reservation required: online from the museum website www.museibologna.it/archeologico or directly on the platform www.midaticket.it
Cost of participation: € 5 + € 1 presale fee

The project Agora Archaeology. La piazza vicino alla piazza is curated by Paola Giovetti and Federica Guidi, with Laura Bentini, Anna Dore, Marinella Marchesi, Laura Minarini, Daniela Picchi and Fabio Capponcelli.

For more info: www.museibologna.it/archeologico

Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Thursdays and Fridays from 3 to 7 p.m., Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Tuesdays.

Tickets: Full 6 euros, reduced 3 euros, special reduced 2 euros from 18 to 25 years old.

Image: Attic goblet krater with red figures by the Painter of Methyse. The main side depicts Theseus, in oplitic arms, bidding farewell to his mother Etra (460-440 B.C.; provenance Vulci; Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico)

Bologna Archaeological Museum opens Agora inspired by the squares of ancient Greece

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