"From Hell to Empyrean. Dante's world between science and poetry“: This is the title of the exhibition that Florence dedication to Dante Scienziato. Scheduled until 6 March 2022 both at Fiorino room, in Pitti Palace Modern Art Gallery, the exhibition arises from the collaboration between the Galileo Museum and the Uffizi Galleries. And it marks the conclusion of the celebrations for the 700th anniversary of the death of Supreme Poet.
Not just a poet: Dante's scientific knowledge
"From Hell to Empyrean. Dante's world between science and poetry”Is the first exhibition ever dedicated to Dante scientist. In the exhibition curated by Filippo Camerota, Deputy Director of the Galileo Museum, assisted by various scholars who are part of the scientific committee of the exhibition, drawings, manuscripts, engravings and maps of how Dante imagined the afterlife. And then representations of how he knew the Earth and the universe. Starting point of the investigation, the Galileo's lessons on Dante's Inferno. Because Dante was indeed a poet, but also (in his own way) a scientist. His scientific skills ranged from medicine to geometry, from geology to geology. So much so that the Divine Comedy and all its works are much more than a work of fantasy.
Particular emphasis, the exhibition on Dante the scientist gives him the interest of the Supreme Poet for the Islamic culture. He knew the natural philosophy of Averroes, the medical science of Avicenna, the astronomical work of Al-Farghani. His astronomical information, he drew almost all of them right from Kitāb fī ģiawām i''ilm an-nuģiūm by Al-Farghani (il Free de aggregationibus scientiae stellarum, in the Latin translation by Gherardo da Cremona).
Dante scientist, what to expect from the exhibition
The three rooms in which the exhibition is set up represent the three songs. The first is theInferno (The underground world), with a domed roof that shows the point of view of Lucifer: his body is suspended in the heart of a chasm, surrounded by the souls of the damned and with his gaze turned to the emerged lands. The second is the Purgatorio (The terrestrial world), whose starry sky refers to Dante's phrase "to see the stars again". The third room, the XNUMX. Paradiso (The celestial world), leaves the visitor suspended between the material world, reproduced on the floor according to the Ptolemaic system, and the spiritual world, with its angels engaged in rotating around the light that everything has created and towards which everything tends.
Walking along the exhibition path, you will be enchanted by the set-up. And you can scroll through original works and reproductions of non-transportable works, 3D models of the Earth and films (including the video produced by Infini.to-Planetario di Torino for the Italian Space Agency, which compares Dante's world with modern explorations of the Solar System).
Photo photos: Facebook page of the Museo Galileo
