Personal Photographic Exhibition
Altopascio – Sala Peregrinatio
Piazza Ospitalieri 6
In the historic center
Every Saturday and Sunday
from April 5th to May 4th 2025
Altopascio (Lu) is also known as the city of bread, due to a particular bread-making process that uses “sconcia”, the local sourdough starter, which the town has maintained over the centuries.
Piazza degli Ospitalieri, where the exhibition will be held, is one of the most fascinating places in the historic center and the heart of the village.
Gps – 43.815085, 10.675419
The venue is accessible and can be visited by people with reduced motor or sensory abilities.
On display Photographs – Fine Art – in black and white, large format, on Hahnemühle Fine Art Baryta 325 gsm paper mounted on 60×42 panels.
Altopascio
The city of bread, a delightful village along the Via Francigena.
Altopascio is also known as the city of bread, by virtue of a particular bread-making process that uses the “sconcia”, the local sourdough starter, which the town has maintained over the centuries.
Piazza degli Ospitalieri is one of the most fascinating places in the historic center and the heart of the village. Located where the hospital cloister once stood, and embellished with a medieval octagonal well.
In the city there are many artistic and architectural works to discover, such as the famous church dedicated to San Jacopo built in 1100 during the period of the Order of the Knights of Tau, a religious and chivalric order. The church was completed with an imposing bell tower in 1280.
Inside there is the Smarrita, the famous bell, built by Saggina in 1325 and which served to pilgrims who were lost in the Cerbaie woods to find their way.
The Knights of Altopascio: the Order of the Tau
The Order of the Hospitallers of Altopascio took as its symbol the sign of the “Tau”, which also appears on the tower. This Greek letter evoked, first of all, the characteristic shape of the pilgrims’ bag, and was also loaded with other symbolic contents.
The essence of the exhibition.
Photographic exhibition by the Tuscan photographer Dantès (Dante Luci)
Place:
Altopascio (Lu) – Sala Peregrinatio – piazza Ospitalieri 6.
Period:
From 5 April (inauguration date) to 4 May 2025 inclusive.
Opening hours:
Saturday and Sunday 09.30 / 12.30 – 15.00 / 19.00
With the patronage of the Tuscany Region and the Province of Lucca and the Municipality of Altopascio.
– Free Entry
– The venue is accessible and can be visited by people with reduced motor or sensory skills.
“Artists” is the photographic exhibition that will be visible in the Peregrinatio room, in Piazza Ospitalieri in Altopascio, from April 4 to May 4, 2025.
The exhibition, curated by Daniela Maculan and Franco Betti, is organized in collaboration with the cultural office of the Municipality of Altopascio and the cultural association for social promotion Museo del Castagno, with the patronage of the Tuscany Region, the Province of Lucca and the Municipality of Altopascio.
It will be inaugurated on Friday, April 4 at 5 pm.
It will be open on Saturday and Sunday from 9.00 am to 12.30 pm – from 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm with free entry.
Upon request, for school groups and groups of at least 5 people, extraordinary openings on other days of the week, by the staff of the Altopascio municipal library:
For an appointment, contact the library at 0583.216280
or the organizers at 349.6093206.
“Artists” is a selection of images, many of which are unpublished, from the complete works “Vissi d’Arte”, by the Tuscan photographer Dantès, a reportage published in a prestigious photographic volume and the subject of numerous exhibitions.
The photos on display are always accompanied by an appropriate caption, in Italian and English, which explains their historical and cultural context.
55 fine-art photographs in black and white, printed in large format, many of which are unpublished. A work that required years of research and unprecedented planning, a sort of photographic journey through artisan Tuscany.
The desire to discover, the pleasure of telling, the desire to excite, this is the path that is proposed through the narration of life and work of men and women of our territory.
It is their eyes and their gaze, it is the frenzy of their hands – often deliberately immortalized in motion by the photographer’s camera – that dominate many of the shots, candid and light hands, contrasted with those experienced and sculpted by time, but all united by the perfection of a gesture performed thousands of times.
And so the photographic reportage becomes an intimate and silent dialogue between photographer and Master, a direct and engaging anthropological story in black and white, which allows the observer to immerse himself in real, authentic and detailed environments, to find himself face to face with stages and squares, laboratories and workshops, shops and factories, fields and valleys, docks and construction sites.
Naked, alive, tangible photography.
“”I don’t know if with this reportage I managed to convey the same sensations that I felt, in finding myself in those places that I would dare to call “sacred”, with those extraordinary people, there will still be the awareness of having fixed in time, a glimpse of the 21st century, with deep roots in the past.
A document for the new generations, because photographing traditions is the only way to preserve their memory. – Dantès”
