The tree of poetry in the sign of Virgil

13-14-15 October 2012
The tree of poetry in the sign of Virgil in the 2082nd of the birth of Publius Virgilio Marone

with the patronage of the Municipality of Naples, Department of Culture and Tourism, and with the patronage of the Superintendence for Architectural, Landscape, Historical, Artistic and Ethnoanthropological Heritage for Naples and the Province.

The Ides of October, 15 October of each year, were consecrated by the ancient Romans to Virgil, who on that day was born in the Pago di Andes, Mantua, but then moved to Neapolis, his favorite city, where he developed his cultural path and spiritual and where it seems he was buried in a mausoleum at the foot of the cave called Crypta Neapolitana (today in Piedigrotta).
Neapolitan hagiography, over the centuries, has always placed Virgil as Divo Magister, that is, as not only a profound man of culture and an illustrious man of letters and poet, but also as the original Protector of the City.
In this vision, by Gino Sansone and Marco Francini, the Project “The Awakening of the Soul of Partenope in the Sign of Virgil” was born, a musical-poetic-spiritual journey through the Virgilian sites in the City with the aim of reawakening the Creative Spirit.
As part of this Project, since last 2011, it is intended to propose an event on the Ides of October in the mythical place of Virgil’s burial, the current Literary Park of Virgil’s Tomb in Piedigrotta; sacred place par excellence of the Neapolitans since the time of the Romans, who consecrated it first to Priapus and then to Mitrha, until the Marian Cult of the Christian era.
This year, to celebrate the birth of Publio Virgilio Marone, a three-day event is proposed, divided into: installation of a collective work of contemporary art, musical-vocal interventions and poetic-literary declamations.
The theme is The Tree of Poetry in the Sign of Virgil.
The inspiration is taken from the marvelous work carried out by the Superintendence, in collaboration with the Botanical Garden of Naples and the Suor Orsola Benincasa Institute, in creating the Virgilian Plant Garden within the Park, that is, the planting of the plants in the ground and of the trees that Virgil names and describes in his Works, accompanied by small plaques reporting the Latin verses with which he cites them in Poeta.
The Tree as a symbol of Life and Knowledge will be a guide to artists, poets and musicians in creating their works which will be shared on site.
It will be a single Creative Action with multiple voices in the Sign of Virgil.
This event aims to put deep roots in the city and become from next 2013 an annual, national and international event of art, music, poetry and creative culture… in the sign of our contemporary Virgil.

Marco Francini, vocals
Riccardo Veno, wind instruments