A series of public conferences, organized as part of the “Dante e la Grecia” International Conference, will begin in Nicosia on September 27, and then continue to Athens and four other Italian cities (Bari, Salerno, Milan and Ravenna).
The event will take place at the Axiothea Space, Cultural Center of the University of Cyprus, at 19:00.
The initiative, as part of the program celebrating the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, is promoted by the Italian Philellenic Society together with Italian, Greek and Cypriot institutions that have collaborated in the initiative: the Athens and Nicosia Committees of the Dante Alighieri Society, the SEPI Association and the ETP Books Publishing House of Athens, the Lectura Dantis Metelliana, as well as the Department of Humanities and the Department of Human Sciences, Philosophy and Education of the University of Salerno and the Department of Humanities of the “Aldo Moro” University of Bari.
The Nicosia conference is supported by the University of Cyprus and takes place under the auspices of the Italian Embassy in Nicosia.
The main object of the project’s investigation is the search for the elements that link Dante’s work to ancient and modern Greece and Cyprus. In particular, the opening conference in Nicosia, with the evocative title “Dante nelle acque di Cipro” (“Dante in the Waters of Cyprus”), will be led by Prof. Michael Pieris (University of Cyprus) in order to research and analyze the presence of Dante in Greek Cypriot literature.
The greetings of the Ambassador of Italy to Cyprus, H.E. Andrea Cavallari, the Rector of the University of Cyprus, Prof. Tassos Christofidis, the President of the Italian Philellenic Society, Prof. Galdi and the President of the Dante Alighieri Committee of Nicosia, Prof. Umberto Mondini, will be followed by the interventions of the speakers: Prof. Irene Chirico (University of Salerno), Prof. Michael Pieris (University of Cyprus), Prof. Gaia Zaccagni (University of Cyprus), Prof. Stamatia Laoumtzi (University of Cyprus), Prof. Maria Mattioli (writer) and Prof.ssa Adalgisa Legatti (Italianist).
At the end of the conference, the video art “Terra Cypria Dantis”, curated by Loris Marinoni and Gaia Zaccagni, will be screened.
On 28 September, at 8.30 pm, in the Axiothea Space premises, the theatrical representation of the opera “Ecce Luminae: Prometheus Bound” by Christodoulos Galatopoulou, performed by the Theater Laboratory of the University of Cyprus “ThePAK” and directed by Prof. Michael Pieris, will take place.
The collaboration between the Cultural Center of the University of Cyprus and the Dante Alighieri Society and the influence of the great Italian poet on Greek and Cypriot literature, are testified by the presence, in the garden of the Center, of a bust depicting the great poet, a work created by the Italian sculptor Ciro Vignes and donated in 2019 on the occasion of the visit to Cyprus by the Secretary General of the Dante Alighieri Society, Prof. Alessandro Masi.
The next conference of the “Dante e la Grecia” project, inaugurated by the Ambassador of Italy in Athens, Patrizia Falcinelli, will take place in Athens on the 30th of September, at the Italian Cultural Institute, on the theme “Dante in modern and contemporary Greek literature”, followed by the screening of the silent film “Dante’s Inferno” (1911) and the preview of the exhibition “Dante: the imagination of images” curated by Konstantinos Moussas.
Conferences will then continue in Italy (Bari, Salerno, Milan) ending on November 20 on Dante’s tomb in Ravenna with the reading of the verses of the Supreme Poet in Greek.
The Embassy of Italy in Nicosia takes the opportunity to remind that on the site https://www.spreaker.com/show/dalla-selva-oscura-al-paradiso it is possible to listen freely the audiobook “Dalla selva oscura al Paradiso” which offers a guided tour in thirty-three languages through the three Canti of the Divina Commedia, Inferno, Purgatorio e Paradiso.
