Two current Florence exhibitions bookend commemorative years paying tribute to two Italian geniuses: the artist Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483 – 1520) and the poet Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321), often called the father of the Italian language thanks to his landmark work The Divine Comedy. The Raphael exhibition in Palazzo Vecchio’s Sala d’Arme is the final event of 2020 dedicated to him.  The painter hailed from Umbria but lived in Florence on and off from 1505 to 1508, just after Michelangelo’s David was placed in Piazza Signoria, where it was to remain until 1873.  In the cloisters of Santa Maria Novella, the Dante 700 photo show in homage to the 700th anniversary of his death is the preview of a yearlong program dedicated to this Florence native.  All events have been organized according to the present safety guidelines.
 
Because of his political affiliation, Alighieri was forced to leave the city in 1302 in the aftermath of a power struggle, never to return.  Dante was to wander throughout Tuscany and northern Italy for the next 18 years. During his stay in the city of the Renaissance, the groundbreaking art of Leonardo da Vinci and other Florence masters, as seen in the Florence exhibition, would inspire Raphael throughout his career, which he continued in Rome.
 
RAPHAEL AND FLORENCE
 
As the final celebration of the 500th anniversary year of the death of Raphael, the Municipality of Florence and MUS.E collaborated with the Palais de Beaux-Arts de Lille to create an immersive exhibition at Palazzo Vecchio accentuating the period the artist spent in Florence. Curated by Valentina Zucchi and Sergio Risaliti, Raphael and Florence brings visitors back in time by placing them in the heart of Renaissance Florence.  This multimedia retrospective of Raphael’s iconic paintings on the walls of the Sala d’Arme also includes masterpieces by his contemporaries, most notably Da Vinci and Michelangelo, which were to create a lasting influence on the artist from central Italy. Raphael’s story is told through a series of larger-than-life projections of the artist’s works in the niches created by the vaulted ceiling overhead, which display an evolution of style reflecting his local sojourn.
 
Also on display in the Sala d’Arme is Raphael’s treasured drawing “Portrait of a Bust of a Young Woman,” probably a preparatory sketch for a painting, which dates back to the artist’s Florentine years and is on loan from Lille’s Palais des Beaux-Arts.  The public is also invited to participate in a Raphael walking tour in Florence, with guided visits available on Saturdays and Sundays at 3 pm via reservation at 055 2768224 or info@muse.comune.fi.it.
 
Until December 31, 2020: Raphael and Florence.  Piazza Signoria. 18.  Tickets include entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio museum. The cost is €12.50, and there is a discount for ages 18 – 25. Free admission is given to those under 18, the handicapped, and for “Card del Fiorentino” holders.  (savannah camastro)
 
DANTE AT SANTA MARIA NOVELLA
 
Massimo Sestini returns to Florence with yet another show dedicated to the city’s native son, Dante Alighieri. Seven hundred years after his death, Dante’s unprecedented legacy lives on throughout the streets of Italy, as viewers will experience.
 
Kicking off the 2021 special anniversary year, the traveling show spotlights the father of Italian language and offers a preview into all the exhibitions, performances, and celebrations to come nationwide in 2021. The 23 images depict the famous poet’s impact and how it continues to play a part in constructing the very identity of Italian culture and expression.
 
Frescoes, street art murals, sculptures, re-enactments, and pieces of Dante’s physical presence are documented in true Sestini fashion, combining the ancient past with his experimental and non- traditional modes of shooting. Following in Dante’s footsteps, Sestini travels to Venice, Rome, Verona, Poppi Castle, and finally Ravenna, where each city is decorated in tributes to the beloved writer who sought refuge there.
 
Dante can be found even in the smallest corners of Florence and Tuscany, often looking over us. From Piazza Santa Croce, a full figure statue overlooks the square which is completely empty thanks to the Coronavirus lockdown, holding his book and pondering the scene below. His face is also mirrored in a puddle in the square.  On the wall inside a building, on via del Proconsolo, now the premises of the Fishing Lab restaurant, he is immortalized in an authentic medieval fresco, the only portrait to be made of him while he was alive. The venue was the headquarters of the Palazzo dell’Arte dei Giudici e Notai, one of major guilds (of judges and notaries) that ruled Florence during the Middle Ages.  The vaulted ceiling contains a remarkable mural of Florence as the “Heavenly Jerusalem,” flanked by depictions of literary figures Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch and Zanobi da Strada.
 
“Nothing seems greater/Than when I am in my beautiful Saint John/Made to be the place of the baptized.” This quote, which is immortalized in lines 16 through 18 of Dante’s Divine Comedy, accurately describes the spell that the Baptistery of Saint John (San Giovanni) places upon its visitors. Dante’s own christening took place there in 1266.  Consecrated in 1059, the Baptistery’s history is a long and rich one.  Striking are the different levels of Byzantine-style figurative ceiling mosaics, with a huge impassive haloed Christ as the centerpiece. To the viewer’s right, and Christ’s left, the closest tier depicts Inferno, or hell (after all, the subject is the Last Judgment). There is a big, fat demon in the center of the Inferno panel with a body between his teeth—buttocks and legs protruding from his mouth, photographed by Sestini for the Dante 700 exhibition to echo the Inferno section of the Divine Comedy.
 
The poet’s bust also sits outside Poppi Castle, where he frequently visited the counts of the Guidi family, the local nobility of the Casentino region—otherwise known as Dante’s Land—just southeast of Florence. After having been exiled from Florence, Dante found refuge here and lived in several of the Guidi castles, which were also mentioned throughout The Divine Comedy.
 
Though there is a sarcophagus for Dante in the church of Santa Croce, his body was laid to rest in Ravenna in 1321 near the Basilica of San Francesco (both are pictured).  Also a part of the show is a photo of a Renaissance masterpiece, a wooden door with a detailed, full-figure inlay of Dante made in 1480 by Giuliano Maiano and Francesco di Giovanni in Palazzo Vecchio.
 
Until January 6, 2021: Dante 700. Piazza Santa Maria Novella 18.  Tickets include entrance to the Santa Maria Novella Complex. Prices range from €5 for those aged 11 - 18 and €7.50 for everyone else. Free admission is given to those under the age of 11 and residents of the municipality of Florence. Hours until November 30: Thursday to Monday from 11 am to 5 pm; from December 1: Monday to Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm; until January 6: Sunday from 1 to 5 pm.  Admission every 15 minutes, last entrance at 4 pm.  (cathy doherty/additional reporting by rosanna cirigliano)
 
MAGENTA FLORENCE