On the occasion of the 21st Week of the Italian Language in the World, the Italian Cultural Institute of Stuttgart offers a full programme of Dante-themed events in cooperation with a number of local partners.
On Monday 18 October , in Freiburg, there is the vernissage of the exhibition ‘Theodor Zeller – Dantes Vision. Vom inferno zum paradiso‘. This event organized by the Institute in cooperation with the Dante Alighieri Society is held in the Foyer des Herder-Verlagshauses.
On Thursday 21 October the University of Mannheim presents ‘Il Sommo italiano’ (The Italian Supreme): in this online conference, the historian Fulvio Conti talks to us about the myth and the public use of Dante from the eighteenth century to today.
On Friday 22 October we meet again at the Italian Institute of Stuttgart with the event ‘Dante oggi’ (Dante today). The writer Cesare De Marchi reflects on the Divine Comedy, asking what the work can say to its readers today and showing how its reception has changed over the centuries.
On Sunday 24 October it is the turn of ‘La parola a Beatrice e a Francesca!’ (Beatrice and Francesca have their say). The group Theatralia Europa and Simonetta Puleio dedicate an evening to the two women described by Dante, through the scenic reading of two ‘impossible interviews’.
On Monday 25 October the linguist Simone Pregnolato talks to us about Dante’s language in his speech ‘La modernità di Dante (ovvero: della lingua italiana)’ (The modernity of Dante (or: of the Italian language). This lecture at the University of the Saarland can be viewed online.
Dante’s Italian is always the subject of the online conference ‘Dante e l’italiano, Dante è l’italiano’ (Dante and Italian, Dante is Italian), organized by the Italienzentrum of the University of Heidelberg on 28 October at 6 pm. Accompanied by the linguist Giuseppe Patota, we will explore the extremes of Dante’s expressive abilities in Italian.
Also on Thursday 28, at 6:30 pm, Alessandro Pazzi and Lorenzo Vergani will perform a literary jukebox on the Divine Comedy. This is ‘A riveder le stelle’ (To rebehold the stars), an event at the Italienzentrum of the University of Stuttgart.
On Friday 29, the conductor István Dénes will present a lecture on Franz Liszt’s ‘Dante Sonata‘. This event by the Italienzentrum and the Institute of Roman Studies of the University of Trier will be available to view online.
The Dante-themed events go far beyond the Week of the Italian Language. On 3 November, the historian Nicolò Maldina from Bologna talks to us about the influence of late medieval religious literature on Dante’s work, in the lecture ‘Dante e i linguaggi della predicazione tardomedievale’ (Dante and the languages of late medieval preaching) organized by the University of Tübingen.
We end with Laura Pasquini, art historian in Bologna, who on November 22 takes us to (re)discover Ravenna’s mosaics with Dante’s eyes and mind with a Zoom seminar.
Discover the full programme on iicstoccarda.esteri.it.