(ANSA) - ORVIETO (TERNI), 24 MAR - In the office of the mayor of Orvieto there is a bearded Dante Alighieri.
An unpublished painting that depicts the Supreme Poet in a completely different way from the official iconography.
It has gone unnoticed for decades, perhaps centuries, and only now, on the eve of "Dantedì" with which the 700th anniversary of the death of the author of the Divine Comedy is celebrated, has it leapt to the eyes of Roberta Tardani, who leads the municipal administration of the Rupe.
"We are faced with a mysterious picture, according to the first researches it could be dated between 1500 and 1600", explains Daniele Di Loreto, president of the "Claudio Faina" Museum Foundation.
"The author is unknown - he adds -, but it is conceivable that he was inspired by the Florentine painter Cristofano di Papi dell'Altissimo, according to an initial evaluation made by some art historians".
"What appears certain - underlines Di Loreto - is that the representation seems to take its cue from the detailed description that Giovanni Boccaccio makes of the face of Dante Alighieri in the 'Trattatello in laude di Dante' written between 1351 and 1355. Boccaccio writes: 'Il his face was long, and his nose was aquiline, and his eyes indeed big than stalks, his jaws large, and from the lower lip was the advanced upper; and the color was brown and his hair and beard thick, black and frizzy, and always in the melancholy and pensive face '. It is exactly as it was depicted in the painting inside the town hall ".
"Maybe we are in front of a masterpiece and we were unaware of it", announces the mayor who says she is "excited" to have him next to her in her office.
"A more precise assessment will have to be made on the beard, which may have been added at a later time", explains Tardani.
"Beyond what will emerge - underlines the mayor - there remains a fascinating painting that we would like to share with the people of Orvieto and, pandemic permitting, with the tourists who reach our city every year. For this reason - she concludes - we will place it at the center of the exhibition. which we will organize after the summer starting from September 14th ".
(HANDLE).