Paolo Sabbatini Presents in Monaco on the Occasion of Dantedì the Fascinating Story of the Translation of the Divine Comedy into Chinese

Monday, March 25, 2024, the Dante Alighieri Association – Monaco Committee, under the High Patronage of H.R.H. The Princess of Hanover and with the patronage of the Embassy of Italy, presents at the Auditorium AGORA Diocesana (18, rue Bellevue Monaco), at 7:00 PM, Prof. Paolo Sabbatini’s Dantis lecture, Ambassador for Italo-Chinese Cultural Communications at the World Sinological Center in Beijing (PRC).

The title of the Monaco conference, which coincides with Dantedì (a day dedicated to Dante Alighieri in Italy and abroad), is “Dante and China. The difficulty of translating the Divine Comedy into Chinese seven centuries after Marco Polo’s journey”. “I arrived in Beijing in 1985, as a UN official,” Paolo Sabbatini recounts in the Notebooks of the Italian Cultural Institute; Cairo, Egypt 2017 – “Already from Rome, I had been informed about the activities of the Dante Alighieri Committee and the ‘unyielding Dante enthusiasts.’ Among them, I was informed about an elderly (I would say almost very elderly) academic from the University of Beijing, Prof. Tian Dewang. The professor was famous for graduating in the 1920s in Florence with a thesis on Poliziano. He then returned to China and taught Italian literature at the University of Beijing for many years. In 1966, he suffered the same fate as many other intellectuals during the so-called Cultural Revolution: he was ‘reeducated’ through manual labor. With the advent of Deng Xiaoping, an enlightened leader, many intellectuals were rehabilitated; I had the fortune to witness a historic moment when China was opening up to the outside world and resuming international relations…” This is a way to pay homage and remember, therefore, two great Italians famous worldwide, as in 2024 we also celebrate the 700th anniversary of the death of Marco Polo, one of the characters who best symbolize the cultural relations between Italy and China.

The distinguished speaker of the Dante Alighieri Monaco is therefore a connoisseur of China where, from 2006 to 2011, he served as Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Shanghai; he coordinated, among other things, the “Sino-Italian Campus” at Tong-Ji University in Shanghai; he was appointed Cultural Adviser to the Shanghai-Jingan Municipality and Special Adviser to the Shanghai Theater Academy. Born in 1955 in Porto Sant’Elpidio in the Marche region, Sabbatini is Head of the Cultural Promotion Area of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. Former director of the Italian Cultural Institutes in Brussels, Cairo, and Prague, Cultural Adviser of the Italian Embassy in Egypt, and Coordinator of Italian Culture for North Africa and the Middle East. With the patronage of the IIC (Italian Cultural Institute) of Beijing and in partnership with the Dante Alighieri Committee of Antwerp, Sabbatini will therefore lead the members and friends of the association of the Principality, chaired by Maria Betti, into the fascinating cultural world of China by also talking about the first “celebrated” version of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy translated into Chinese by Tian Dewang, who spent 18 years with perseverance and passion completing this work, still capable of leaving its mark on history and various cultures.

FREE ENTRY.

Register by March 21 at info.dantemc@gmail.com or at +377 97 70 89 47.”