Ravenna is a magical city. The splendour of its artistic and architectural masterpieces, together with the richness of its historical and political heritage and the preponderant influence of its natural surroundings made this melting-pot of cultures, in its most fecund times, a haven of intellectuals, poets, writers, artists and travellers.
We are talking about leading figures of our culture, who found here creative inspiration, inputs for their studies, peace for their eyes and food for their mind. From the poet par excellence, Dante Alighieri, who here wrote Paradiso and died in exile in 1321, to Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo, who in 1999 rewrote the history of this city, causing quite a stir.
Or again, we can not forget those sentimental travellers, the poets George Byron, who lived in Ravenna from 1819 to 1821 and Oscar Wilde, who discovered Ravenna on horseback in 1877, right up to Thomas Stearns Eliot, who set his alienating Honeymoon (1916) here, and finally Gabriele D’Annunzio and Ezra Pound.
All of them captured this city – and everything it represents – with their pens: firmly rooted in history and ancient culture, Ravenna was for them an inexhaustible treasure chest of intense feelings and artistic inspiration.
