23/03/2021

The Week of Dante in the Uffizi Gallery

Many online events dedicated to the poet, as well as the virtual exhibition “Non per foco ma per divin’arte”

Non per foco ma per divin’arte © Galleria Degli Uffizi

A long series of events to celebrate the Supreme Poet: for Dantedì, the Uffizi Gallery has organized not just a single day of events, but an entire week. The lectures and meetings will take place exclusively online, via their Facebook channel, granting a larger audience the opportunity to access in-depth information and lectures.

The program of events

At 9.30 on Thursday 25, there will be the inauguration of the sculpture ‘Alberi in versi’ by Giuseppe Penone, which will be broadcast live on Facebook. About 22 meters high, it is the largest work ever placed outdoors in the center of Florence and will be installed in Piazza della Signoria. Discussions about the exhibition are scheduled, with the ribbon cutting to follow with the director of the Uffizi Galleries Eike Schmidt, the president of the Tuscan Regional Council Eugenio Giani and the mayor of Florence Dario Nardella.

At 1.30pm on Friday 26, the event will take place live on Facebook as always but will this time be streamed from the Uffizi Library. The meeting will be dedicated to the number of editions of the Divine Comedy in the collections of the Magliabechiana library. The coordinator of the library Carla Basagni will guide us in the discovery of these valuable volumes.

The week will end on Sunday 28 with a video in Latin on Facebook for the ‘Latine loquimur’ series, titled “Dante’s return in San Pier Scheraggio”, with Professor Alessandro Muscillo.

The virtual exhibition “Non per foco ma per divin’arte”

Beginning on the night of March 24-25 2021, there will be a virtual exhibition dedicated to Dante available on www.uffizi.it titled “Not by fire but by divinity: Dante images in the Uffizi Galleries”, a selection of works that are part of the Galleries collection and that includes paintings, drawings and sculptures from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century that reveal the figure of Dante, his characters and the wealth of Alighieri-related works in the history of art. These include the famous fresco by Andrea del Castagno depicting the poet and scenes from the Divine Comedy such as The Dark Forest by Federico Zuccari and the Entrance into Hades with Virgil by Livio Mehus as well as masterpieces by Cimabue, Giotto, Botticelli and Pio Fedi. The introduction to the exhibition is written by Paolo Procaccioli, professor at the University of Tuscia in Viterbo.