The exhibition, created by the Galileo Museum in collaboration with the Uffizi Galleries, concludes the celebrations for the eighteenth century since the death of the poet of the “Commedia”
On the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante (1265-1321), the Museo Galileo in Florence, in collaboration with the Uffizi Galleries, presents the exhibition From Hell to Empyrean. Dante’s world between science and poetry, focused on the relationship between Alighieri and science (open until 6 March 2022 at Palazzo Pitti). For the first time Dante “scientist” is at the center of an exhibition that leverages the visual dimension evoked by his verses. With the patronage and support of the National Committee for the celebration of the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, the collaboration between Galileo Museum e Uffizi Galleries is renewed in the realization of an event that concludes the initiatives of this Dante year. The exhibition is curated by the Deputy Director of the Galileo Museum, Filippo Camerota.
The steps of the Comedy, of Convivio and of Questio de aqua et terra they are illustrated through the exhibition of artistic works, manuscripts, three-dimensional models and multimedia products that illustrate the cosmological system, physical geography and spiritual geography of Dante’s works. Particular emphasis is given to the relationship with the Islamic culture of the Supreme Poet, a profound connoisseur of the natural philosophy of Averroes, of the medical science of Avicenna, and of the astronomical work of Al-Farghani.
The sections of the exhibition ideally replicate the tripartite division of the Comedy: the exhibition itinerary is marked by three rooms representing the songs. In the first, Inferno, the visitor finds himself immersed in the bowels of the Earth. In Purgatory, the room is covered by the starry sky of the southern hemisphere, where Dante imagines himself once he has gone out “to see the stars”. In the last, Paradiso, the visitor finds himself suspended between the material world, reproduced on the floor according to the Ptolemaic system, and the spiritual world, represented on the dome by the angelic hosts that whirl around the very bright point from which everything originates and towards which everything is stretched out.
Besides precious original works – manuscripts, prints, drawings, engravings, world maps and scientific instruments – high resolution reproductions of large three-dimensional models representing the Earth and the cosmological structure of the Universe as they were known by Dante are on display together with films made by the Multimedia Laboratory of the Museo Galileo. Furthermore, thanks to two immersive multimedia projections produced by camerAnebbia, visitors are transported inside the miniatures of a precious manuscript of the Comedy kept at British Library, thus reliving the experience of the cosmic journey undertaken by the Poet.
«Among the various sciences of which we find the vestiges in the poetic work of Alighieri, cosmography – he explains Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi Galleries – is certainly the one that has greater relevance for our times: almost every year we are surprised by new discoveries and new theories on the conformation, on the genesis and on the destiny of the infinite world that surrounds our small and fragile planet, and which regularly overturn what we have hitherto taken for certain. The reconstructions and fantasies of the Supreme Poet on the structure of the world will be able to provide insights to scientists who must look for metaphors to describe phenomena outside and far from the perception of our senses ».
December 19, 2021 (change December 19, 2021 | 08:13)
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