In an era when it was still premature to speak of State and Nation, Dante had very clear ideas about what the territorial and cultural borders of Italy were. An Italy conceived as a region in which the same language was spoken, observed in the variety of its dialects in De vulgari eloquentia, in which mention is also made of the Istriot. An Italy conceived in the Divine Comedy “as in Pola near the Carnaro, which encloses Italy and bathes its borders”, with reference to the Roman necropolis of Pola, which the illustrious poet almost certainly had the opportunity to see during a stay in Istria.

During the Risorgimento, when the Italian language was a fundamental component in the search for an identity that still needed to be perfected, Dante became a national icon and, in the lands that were still unredeemed at the end of the Wars of Independence, statues and busts, toponymic references and cultural initiatives in honour of the “fugitive Ghibelline” were found in Trento, Pola, Trieste, Zara and Fiume. This passion for Dante reached its peak in the patriotic journey made to Ravenna in 1908 by hundreds of people from Giulia, Fiume and Dalmatia to pay homage to Dante’s tomb. Without forgetting that the Dante Alighieri Society, founded in Rome in 1889, played a very important role in supporting the preservation and promotion of the Italian language and culture in the provinces still under Habsburg domination. At the end of the First World War, local branches of the Dante Alighieri Society also officially arose in Trieste, Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia, and after the Second World War hundreds of thousands of Adriatic exiles would identify with the verses in which the Florentine poet, meeting his ancestor Cacciaguida in Paradise, foresaw and described his own exile: "You will leave behind everything you hold dear; […] You will experience how salty the bread of others tastes, and how hard a path it is to climb and descend other people's stairs."

The project of the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia “Dante Adriaticus” takes its name from an engraving that Adolfo De Carolis made to celebrate Gabriele d'Annunzio and the city of Fiume in 1920, at the center of a troubled path to reunification with Italy after the First World War. This initiative was conceived, planned and coordinated by the Provincial Committee of Rome of the ANVGD through a Scientific Committee composed of Donatella Schürzel, Eufemia Giuliana Budicin, Maria Grazia Chiappori, Lorenzo Salimbeni and Barbara Vinciguerra. The purpose of the project is to remember that, outside of today's borders, the autochthonous Italianity of the eastern Adriatic must be safeguarded, today more than ever, and reconstructed in its centuries-old presence there.

The project will be divided into various activities that will take place in three cultural centers: Rome, Verona, Pola. The moments of study and analysis will be concentrated in Conferences of a multidisciplinary nature, Itineraries theme, linked to the places of Dante and his time, Poetic-musical performances, accompanied by images and with insights proposed by experts to be carried out between September and October, hopefully in person (in any case in compliance with the health regulations in force). At the end of the activities, a report with a photographic exhibition will be set up in the Roman headquarters of the Casa del Ricordo; furthermore, the material produced during the conferences will be collected and published in the Proceedings.

The first Study Day and introductory activity will take place via teleconference on Monday, April 12 from the Casa del Ricordo in Rome. This Webinar will kick off the project and present the many events in the program: scholars, academics, journalists, theater organizations, actresses, theater students and the Dante Alighieri Society from both Adriatic shores will participate. An engaging opportunity to delve deeper into a lesser-known aspect of Dante's biography and work that involves the Adriatic in a European perspective from the Middle Ages to today.

 

Donatella Schurzel
Deputy National Vice President ANVGD