Dante. The Eternal Poet by Felice Limosani Santa Croce, Florence 14th September 2021 – 10th January 2022

A project for the celebration to commemorate the seven-hundredth anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death, promoted by FEC – Ministry of the Interior’s Fund for Places of Worship, Florence City Council, Opera di Santa Croce and #felicelimosani Studio s.r.l. (Benefit Society)

The Basilica of Santa Croce will be hosting Felice Limosani’s cultural project entitled Dante. The Eternal Poet, created using the iconic engravings by the illustrator Gustave Dorè.

This is not a multimedia event based on high-definition projections but rather a multimodal project exploring a paradigm scientifically linking the experience of visiting a museum to other apparently diverse realms, such as #digital education and social work. Dante. The Eternal Poet has been proposed to be included on the MiBACT’s (Ministry of Culture and Tourism) Official Schedule of celebrations to commemorate the sevenhundredth anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death.

Florence, 26th October 2020 – In a political essay he wrote entitled De Monarchia (1312-1313), Dante described himself as a tree that bears fruit, not a hole that swallows things up1. The multimedia artist #felicelimosani drew inspiration from this vision in designing the cultural project entitled Dante. Il Poeta Eterno, which will be hosted on the premises of Santa Croce in Florence from 14th September 2021-10th January 2022.

An innovative project does not set out to “explain” the Divine Comedy but to “talk about” Dante Alighieri and the timelessness of his universal message that is now being brought to light again thanks to an extremely important partnership between FEC – Ministry of the Interior’s Fund for Places of Worship, Florence City Council, Opera di Santa Croce and #felicelimosani Studio s.r.l. (Benefit Society). The project is being presented this morning by #felicelimosani together with representatives of the promoting bodies, the Vice Prefect Vicar, Paola Berardino, the Councillor for Culture for Florence City Council, Tommaso Sacchi, and the President of Opera di Santa Croce, Irene Sanesi.

“The exhibition entitled “Dante. The Eternal Poet” is further evidence of the multifaceted nature of the Ministry of the Interior (and all its delegations operating right across the country) and all those Prefect’s Offices responsible for managing and protecting the assets donated to the Fund for Places of Worship (FEC), often of inestimable artistic, historical, cultural and religious value. – so Paola Berardino stated, Vicar of the Prefecture of Florence. As part of its work managing this priceless cultural heritage, the Prefecture of Florence has been working for years on arranging contracts with all kinds of associations to promote involvement in cultural, editorial and exhibition projects. In accordance with this policy of promoting joint-ventures between different institutions, the Prefecture welcomed the project presented by the artist #felicelimosani with open arms, making all the necessary premises owned by the FEC available for hosting the exhibition inside Santa Croce”.

Dante. The Eternal Poet is based around Felice Limosani’s idea to draw attention to the extraordinary work of the engraver Gustave Dorè and talk about Dante’s life from the viewpoint of the extraordinary rich cultural, moral and spiritual legacy bequeathed by the Great Poet, still so prolific even today. The project sets out to use Santa Croce, a place of great historical importance closely associated with Dante, to reconcile Dante with the city where he was born - Florence, the most emblematic cultural city of all - taking the legendary poet back to some of the places that marked his life story in an attempt to make his universal message more contemporary and alive than ever with the help of the cultural language of the #digital Humanities (of which Limosani is a leading artistic exponent) working on an approach that brings together the humanities and #digital technology.

“Santa Croce is an ideal place for hosting Felice Limosani’s exhibition “Dante, The Eternal Poet - so Irene Sanesi, President of Opera di Santa Croce, emphasised. An obvious venue because Santa Croce is a memorial, it is a place where the past, present and future coexist and a bridge towards new horizons. Dante’s anniversary is a timely event at this moment in history: what Dante has to teach about life and poetry, and his passionate devotion to the affairs of the communities in which he wrote, set an example for men and women of all ages more than ever before, at a time when we need strength to overcome the difficulties posed by the pandemic and courage to look ahead to the future”.

Dante’s legacy has been reread thanks to the authoritative scientific supervision of Enrico Malato, Honorary Professor of Italian Literature, in partnership with Pio Raina Centre for literary, linguistic and philological studies and the vital backing of an important Scientific Committee under the Honorary Presidency of Beatrice Garagnani Ferragamo. The members of the committee are (in alphabetical order): Don Alessandro Andreini, Lucia Battaglia Ricci, Paola Berardino, Paolo Conti, Luca De Biase, Don Alfredo Jacopozzi, Enrico Malato, Padre Gabriel Marius, Maria Marzullo, Andrea Mazzucchi and Jeffrey Schnapp.

“The wonderful thing about Dante is that he is always so current: as the centuries go by, we
constantly find new ways of interpreting and understanding his incredible body of multifaceted
work, starting with the Divine Comedy – so Tommaso Sacchi remarked, the Councillor for
Culture for Florence City Council. His boundless legacy certainly is not static and has a remarkable capacity to renew itself and talk to us in constantly different ways. In this year of Dante celebrations, Florence is, therefore, delighted to host an exhibition that is bold enough to combine new technology with the Great Poet’s universal messages: a striking exhibition that will undoubtedly be fascinating and intriguing”.

The Dante. The Eternal Poet exhibition hinges around engravings by the French artist Gustave
Doré, one of the leading illustrators of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Limosani has created a multimodal (and not just multimedia) project, whose underlying idea is to create a major exhibition based around content that can be used in #digital form for educational purposes and as part of a scientific programme serving social and healthcare purposes.

By digitising 135 of Doré’s works - made available by the Alinari Foundation in Florence - images of Dante’s otherworldly journey from Hell to Paradise form an exhibition that fits perfectly into Brunelleschi’s Cloister, Pazzi Chapel and the Crypt ad Cenacle in Santa Croce.

The exhibition is spread over three levels with rear-lit static images, images animated through projections, and moving images based on virtual reality, all combining to create a very intimate and contemplative form of interactive-digital experience. A very cutting-edge museum experience enhanced by new languages that is duly respectful of its venue and narrated in a very contemporary way.

Following in the wake of the traditional iconography that emerged just after the Divine Comedy came out in 1320 - which, over the centuries, has seen the greatest artists attempt to give their vision to the poem - Doré created a model of representation in the nineteenth century that strongly influenced later interpretations of Dante’s journey. Dante. The Eternal Poet continues this tradition, drawing on past experiences to take this process even further. So, once again, Dante has been given an innovative twist, and the fact that his universal message can still be expressed in new ways to make it even more contemporary is a clear sign of its neverending vitality. Dante has always been perceived as something structurally “other” than us, and this otherness explains why he and his work are still so interesting. Encountering these “other” worlds – Dante’s, Doré’s and now Limosani’s, which, moving beyond the obsolete concept of a unique, original work or a copy, turns works from the past into living organisms that are very much alive for younger #people in particular - Dante. Il Poeta Eterno has the cultural-social intention to give back to literature and art their transformative power, offering new ways and means of experimenting with the Divine Comedy and opening up new means of interaction with this great artwork.

The transfer of knowledge to #digital forms of technology is the very basis of the #digital Humanities: interaction with new technology does not just offer a way of conserving and promoting the cultural heritage, it is also, and above all, capable of changing how we interpret our tradition. This continual renewal is constantly monitored in Dante studies and the exhibition entitled Dante. The Eternal Poet provides another way of getting to know Dante and his message that moves beyond the simple experience of a museum visit. After the exhibition closes in January 2022, Dante. The Eternal Poet will continue in other ways and in other realms.

“The #digital revolution currently underway, on one hand, opens up new stylistic horizons drawing on new languages and, on the other, is changing the way culture is represented, used and promoted - so #felicelimosani noted. The combination of technology and art offers an innovative humanistic and #digital synthesis that is greater than its two parts.

From this perspective, the cultural-historical heritage can be updated and shared in the form of multidisciplinary experiments woven together in museum/educational/social contexts to bring together culture, education, and solidarity. Breaking free from old models and adopting a scientifically rigorous approach makes it possible to enter the realms of entertainment and spectacle to spread culture and knowledge of the highest order to a greater number of people
Thanks to the latest generation technology and a multi-media approach, the content of Dante.

Il Poeta Eterno will continue to be promoted by experimental-experimental means offered by the H-Farm Treviso innovation platform.

More specifically, partnerships have already been set up to plan technical-scientific work, which, in various ways and forms, will involve educators, teachers, pedagogists, psychologists, sociologists, neuroscientists and experts from the San Patrignano Community, Meyer Paediatric Hospital in Florence, Dino Compagni Institute in Florence and San Niccolò Conservatory in Prato.

“Recently published studies have shown that cyber-therapies and simulated multi-sensorial realities have a positive impact on recovery, social rehabilitation, and care programs – so Beatrice Garagnani Ferragamo added, the Honorary President of the Scientific Committee. The evidence immediately points to the positive and very real impact a project like Dante. The Eternal Poet can have on vulnerable or disadvantaged #people, such as those with restricted freedom due to drug/gambling addictions or drinking problems, as well as hospital patients or prison inmates, with tangible benefits for society as a whole. The power and relevance of Dante’s message, the great educational value of this project, and the immersive-engaging language it involves, make Dante. The Eternal Poet a pioneering project opening up new cultural paradigms and offering a real opportunity to develop an innovative educational-training experiment geared to our times, which I am happy and honoured to be an ambassador for”.

The Dante. The Eternal Poet project has been proposed to be included on the MiBACT’s (Ministry of Culture and Tourism) Official Schedule of celebrations to commemorate the seven-hundredth anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death.

Our sincere thanks to the Italian Postal Service for its support in organising the #digital printing conference.