Dantedì, Rome's state museums narrate Dante with artworks and actors

Dante readings in Rome’s museums on the occasion of Dantedì, March 25, the day scholars have identified as the beginning of Dante’s journey through Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Direction of the State Museums of the City of Rome proposes the online presentation of a particular work of art or place chosen and presented by each of the museums’ directors, which will be paired with a Divine Comedy song recited by five professional Italian theater actors, who will take turns inside the various museums.

It will begin at Castel Sant ’Angelo on the Ponte Elio, now Ponte Sant’Angelo, with the 18th canto of Inferno; it will move on to the 18th canto of Paradise at the Spada Gallery thanks to a Caravaggio painting depicting Saints Peter and Paul by Giovanni Baglione; it will then come to the Boncompagni Ludovisi Museum with the XXVIII canto of Purgatory, which in the Salone delle vedute will plunge one into the Eden where Dante and Matelda will be found.

The journey will continue at the Mario Praz Museum in Canto IV of Inferno and, again, in Giovanni Sgambati’s Drawing Room, preserved at the Museum of Musical Instruments, where with Canto V of Inferno will narrate the tragic love of Paolo and Francesca; finally, with the 10th canto of Purgatory, we will admire Melozzo da Forlì’s Annunciation in the Basilica of Santa Maria ad Martyres - Pantheon.

The journey will end at the Etruscan Sanctuary of Apollo in the archaeological area of Veio, where with the I and II Cantos of Paradise we will hear Dante’s invocation to Apollo and Minerva.

Finally, space will be devoted to Dante’s two encounters with Beatrice in her 9th and 18th years: at the Andersen Museum, in front of Hendrik Christian Andersen’s bas-relief depicting them, the 2nd and 3rd chapters of the Vita Nova will be heard.

The actors involved in the initiative who will recite Dante’s cantos are Marco Cavalcoli, Lorenzo Gioielli, Elvira Frosini, Daniele Timpano and Massimo Verdastro.

The entire series will be viewable online on March 25, 2021 on the social platforms and websites of MIC and the City of Rome State Museums Directorate.

Dantedì, Rome's state museums narrate Dante with artworks and actors

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