Ravenna exhibition pays tribute to Federico Faruffini, Lombard painter and passionate reader of Dante

It opened on December 18, 2021 and will be open until February 26, 2022 at the Classense Library in Ravenna the exhibition Dante and Faruffini. The Fascination of the Poet on a Nineteenth-Century Painter, curated by Benedetto Gugliotta, head of the Classense Library’s Protection and Enhancement Office, and by Anna Finocchi, an art historian who is among the leading connoisseurs of Faruffini’s work.

The exhibition is intended to be a tribute to the Lombard painter, engraver and photographer Federico Faruffini (Sesto San Giovanni 1833 - Perugia 1869), whose artistic path crossed several times with Dante Alighieri, of whom he was an attentive and passionate reader.

Sponsored by the Società Dantesca Italiana and the National Committee for the celebrations of the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death, the exhibition presents the relationship between the two through a display of paintings, engravings and period volumes, set up in the spaces of the Manica Lunga. Among the most important works is the famous Alighieri’s Gateway. Reminiscences in Florence, which can be admired for the first time alongside the preparatory sketch and engraving that the artist himself drew from it, the latter coming from the Musei Civici del Castello Visconteo in Pavia.

The itinerary starts ideally from Florence, where the painter was inspired in 1856 for The Door of the House of Alighieri, and ends with the engraving work Faruffini executed for the Pagnoni edition of The Comedy (1865) and with the register of signatures of Dante’s tomb, ms. Classense no. 626 (1863-1897), which contains a Dante drawing, recently rediscovered by the exhibition’s curator, traced by Faruffini on Oct. 27, 1863 during his hitherto unknown trip to Romagna.

The ancient relationship between Ravenna, Dante and the travelers who have paid homage to the poet’s tomb is recalled: Faruffini joins Vittorio Alfieri, Lord Byron, Pius IX, Vittorio Emanuele II, d’Annunzio, Eleonora Duse, Nazario Sauro, De Gasperi, Einaudi, up to Gino Bartali. The exhibition therefore an opportunity to tell through paintings, sketches and books of the period an exemplary case: the link between a great artist of the 19th century and Dante.

“The Classense Library, which has recently discovered that it possesses an exciting unpublished drawing by Faruffini, continues its work of enhancing the Dante legacy, careful custodian of the heritage but also capable of renewing attention to these assets,” stressed the director of the Classense Library, Maurizio Tarantino.

For more info: www.classense.ra.it/faruffini

Hours: Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 to 6:30 p.m.

Image: autograph drawing by Federico Faruffini, Dante’s Tomb Signature Roll (1863-1897; Ravenna, Classense Library, ms. 626)

Ravenna exhibition pays tribute to Federico Faruffini, Lombard painter and passionate reader of Dante

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