Cervia Città Giardino 2021 becomes part of the network Viva Dante – Ravenna 2020/2021

"Cervia takes you to the sea along its many gardens reminding of towns and cities far away”, so Tonino Guerra masterfully summed up the significance of the event.

The largest open-air floral art exhibition in Europe will continue this year to make Cervia a flowery and unique city for its beauty, hospitality and care for greenery.

This year, Cervia Città Giardino, the largest open-air floral art exhibition in Europe, is dedicated to the Divine Comedy, on the occasion of the celebrations of the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri's death. There are 28 green areas that represent evocative scenarios of many moments of Dante's great adventure, thanks to the sculptures of Argentine artist Oscar Dominguez. The itinerary starts from Cervia's Pine Forest, crosses the beautiful gardens of Milano Marittima and Cervia, passes through Pinarella's and Tagliata's Pine Forests, skims the monumental Mulberry Tree and ends in front of the Garden of San Michele Tower, where the profile of the great poet was realized using the mosaiculture technique by the Municipality of Ravenna.

The soul of 'Cervia Città Giardino' has always been to use flowers to launch a message of joy and hope. Flowers are symbols of peace and friendship among peoples, a bridge that unites and leads to rebirth.

This message of hope continues also this year, thanks to an edition dedicated to the celebrations of the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, one of the most important events of 2021 at the international level.
"Dante and the Gardens of Eden" is the title of the floral exhibition, realized thinking about the flowers, the herbs and the forest of the Divine Comedy by the Green Departement of Cervia Municipality.
An "open air" itinerary across the woods and the beautiful gardens of the Garden City, to discover the vegetal world imagined by Dante in his poem, which winds its way through a spectacular parallel universe, exploring the peculiar, interesting, rich vegetation which was the background to the literary work of the supreme poet, and who has passed on to us his knowledge of vegetation, botany and flowers.

There are 28 green areas that represent evocative scenarios of many moments of Dante's great adventure. The path starts from Cervia's Pine Forest, crosses the beautiful gardens of Milano Marittima and Cervia, passes through the Pine Forests of Pinarella and Tagliata, skims the monumental Mulberry Tree and ends in front of the Garden of San Michele Tower, where the profile of the great poet was realized using the mosaiculture technique by the Municipality of Ravenna.
In these days, among the trees and on the lawns, installations in unusual environments are starting to come to life, in which the research of local materials halfway between land art, environmentalism and spiritual nature alternate and merge with plants and flowers, in an artistic dialogue with nature, with its mutability and its aesthetic beauty.
It is thanks to the creativity of Argentinean artist Oscar Dominguez and his sculptures that appropriate both physically and metaphorically the places, that a close dialogue with the surrounding space is undertaken. The theme of the balance between heaven and earth, between emptiness and fullness, makes these installations light and integrates them perfectly into the environment in which they are placed.
In some of the scenes, the artist blends his creativity with that of Cervia's elementary school children, who use modest materials and a lot of imagination to create a fantastic, dreamlike atmosphere, rich in colors and shapes.
Moreover, a series of artists who are friends of Cervia are completing the installations with their particular interpretations of Dante's world.

28 special installations to retrace the verses of the Divine Comedy, in the gardens and through a virtual tour with the reading of important passages from the Divine Comedy

The description of each installation is included in a panel placed in the green space in which Dante's face is represented, painted by the street artist Andrea Ravo Mattoni.
The face depicts his personal reinterpretation of Sandro Botticelli's painting that was exhibited behind the glass window of the cloister of the Oriani Library in Ravenna, facing the tomb of the Supreme Poet, as part of the 5th edition of the project "Dante Plus 700 Collective Exhibition on the face of Dante", realized by Bonobolabo, in partnership with the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Ravenna.
Each panel mentions the references of Oscar Dominguez's work in relation to the tercets of Dante's chant and its paraphrase, all summarized in the Qr-code.
The visit to the gardens is free and opened at all hours of the day until October.

The project is part of the Viva Dante 2021 calendar, organized by the Municipality of Ravenna, of which the main events are sponsored by the National Committee for the VII centenary of Dante Alighieri's death.

Moreover, the "Angoli Fioriti" event will also take place this year, involving all citizens through the display of flowers and plants on their balconies, in their gardens, in their green areas or in a space of their business.