There are exactly 100 days left until the official inauguration of the Byron and Risorgimento Museum, and international attention toward this very important event is already very high. After the official constitution of the Italian Byron Society in Ravenna, throughout June and the first half of July, there have been several visits to the still-under-construction Museum by experts in English Romanticism, literature enthusiasts, and devotees of the Byron myth. These visits clearly demonstrate international interest in the imminent opening of the Museums at Palazzo Guiccioli, which were strongly desired and brought to completion by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Ravenna, chaired by Ernesto Giuseppe Alfieri.
I thank the Foundation not only as a Byron expert but also for the gift it has given to the whole world,” said Professor Gregory Kucich, Professor of European Studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana (United States) and a distinguished member of the American Byron Society, one of the first scholars to visit the rooms of Palazzo Guiccioli. “Here,” the professor continued, “the beauty of the palace, the historical and cultural value of the contents, the spectacular power of immersive technology, and the magic of literature and the poet’s rooms all come together.” Kucich thus captures the essence of a Museum that from its very first room moves visitors, who are perfectly immersed in the atmosphere and costumes of the period thanks to technology that brings Byron and the society of the time to life as if they were the visitor’s ordinary travel companions. The visit is a continual surprise, introducing the visitor to the poet’s verses and relics of his life, amide period reconstructions and in-depth explorations of his figure and the other characters of his intense life in Ravenna and beyond.
The transition from the Byron Museum to the Risorgimento Museum is provided by the poet’s political experiences in the Romagna, helping visitors to shift from the world of literature to history, enveloping them once again in the life of the period through the precious collections of the Fondazione Spadolini Nuova Antologia of Florence and the Fondazione Craxi. The 100 days that now mark the countdown to the inauguration will be punctuated by a series of events in preparation for the grand opening. The first of these events, on July 25, is the inauguration of the exhibition “ByronContemporaneo,” a showcase of photographs by Giampiero Corelli paired with some of the most best-loved verses of the great poet. The exhibition will be hosted at the Chiostri Danteschi, owned by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Ravenna, until October 25, the inauguration date of the Museum. Words and images, impressions and echoes, which strengthen Ravenna’s image worldwide as an international capital of culture and history, but also always capable of modernizing itself and living its past as both a guarantee and a resource for the future—a natural crossroads between the solidity of tradition and the potential of innovation, as effectively expressed by the slogan characterising the bank chaired by Antonio Patuelli, “Cassa di Ravenna, a story of the future”.
There are exactly 100 days left until the official inauguration of the Byron and Risorgimento Museum, and international attention toward this very important event is already very high. After the official constitution of the Italian Byron Society in Ravenna, throughout June and the first half of July, there have been several visits to the still-under-construction Museum by experts in English Romanticism, literature enthusiasts, and devotees of the Byron myth. These visits clearly demonstrate international interest in the imminent opening of the Museums at Palazzo Guiccioli, which were strongly desired and brought to completion by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Ravenna, chaired by Ernesto Giuseppe Alfieri.
I thank the Foundation not only as a Byron expert but also for the gift it has given to the whole world,” said Professor Gregory Kucich, Professor of European Studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana (United States) and a distinguished member of the American Byron Society, one of the first scholars to visit the rooms of Palazzo Guiccioli. “Here,” the professor continued, “the beauty of the palace, the historical and cultural value of the contents, the spectacular power of immersive technology, and the magic of literature and the poet’s rooms all come together.” Kucich thus captures the essence of a Museum that from its very first room moves visitors, who are perfectly immersed in the atmosphere and costumes of the period thanks to technology that brings Byron and the society of the time to life as if they were the visitor’s ordinary travel companions. The visit is a continual surprise, introducing the visitor to the poet’s verses and relics of his life, amide period reconstructions and in-depth explorations of his figure and the other characters of his intense life in Ravenna and beyond.
The transition from the Byron Museum to the Risorgimento Museum is provided by the poet’s political experiences in the Romagna, helping visitors to shift from the world of literature to history, enveloping them once again in the life of the period through the precious collections of the Fondazione Spadolini Nuova Antologia of Florence and the Fondazione Craxi. The 100 days that now mark the countdown to the inauguration will be punctuated by a series of events in preparation for the grand opening. The first of these events, on July 25, is the inauguration of the exhibition “ByronContemporaneo,” a showcase of photographs by Giampiero Corelli paired with some of the most best-loved verses of the great poet. The exhibition will be hosted at the Chiostri Danteschi, owned by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Ravenna, until October 25, the inauguration date of the Museum. Words and images, impressions and echoes, which strengthen Ravenna’s image worldwide as an international capital of culture and history, but also always capable of modernizing itself and living its past as both a guarantee and a resource for the future—a natural crossroads between the solidity of tradition and the potential of innovation, as effectively expressed by the slogan characterising the bank chaired by Antonio Patuelli, “Cassa di Ravenna, a story of the future”.
