November 10th, 2015 – From Marco Polo to Vasco Da Gama, Lisbon and Venice were in the past starting points for trips and explorations around the world, and both were capitals of vast colonial empires across the sea. These are two cities linked by a past and a common vocation. Now, in the Portuguese city, the Italian Cultural Institute is hosting ten days of events entirely dedicated to the Venetian Republic: music, photography, theater, films, conferences and workshops, for an audience composed of both adults and children. The initiative kicks off on November 17, at the Institute, with the conference “Splendors of the Laguna. Venetian beads” by Professor Giorgio Teruzzi, paleontologist at the Natural History Museum of Milan particularly fond of pearls, and specifically of those trade beads produced for centuries in Venice. In 2007, Professor Teruzzi founded a small association, the Compagnia delle Perle, with which he has organized conferences, exhibitions and events in Italy and abroad. For the occasion, the Institute will put on display some murrine. On Thursday, November 19, at the Palácio Nacional da Ajuda goes on stage the play dedicated to the masks of the Commedia dell’Arte “Giù la maschera”, curated by the Belteatro Association of Padua and directed by Bruno Lovadina. The public will have the opportunity to visit the exhibition “Memory of Venice – Murano glass of the Portuguese Royal Family”, which includes a selection of fine objects made in Murano glass from the 19th century. On November 21, children are invited to the screening of the animated film in 3D “Puppies – Marco Polo’s Code” by Francesco and Sergio Manfio, produced by Gruppo Alcuni. The screening will be held at the junior section of the Portuguese Film Library, in the presence of director and producer Francesco Manfio. Within the “Sunday at the Cinema” initiative, on Sunday, November 22, the film “Io sono Li” by Andrea Segre will be screened in the hall of the Teatro do Bairro. On Tuesday, November 24 the Institute hosts the inauguration ceremony of the exhibition of photographs by Mimmo Fabrizi dedicated to the Carnival of Venice. The journalist Roberta Lombardo Hurstel will accompany the public on a walk through the centuries to illustrate the origins of Carnival, which, in the years of the Serenissima, developed to the point that it lasted several months, in a succession of palace parties, theater representations and, of course, plays in the main square. The evening will come to an end with an intervention by writer and journalist Alberto Toso Fei and his video “The Secrets of the Grand Canal.” The following day, on November 25, the Department of Science and Technology of the University Nova of Lisbon, will dedicate a practical demonstration to Venetian glass with glass master Cesare Toffolo, in collaboration with Vicarte, the Research Unit of the Department, as part of the exhibition “Within Light / Inside Glass. An intersection between Art and Science “, inaugurated last September. On November 26 the conference “Cesare Toffolo, Master glassmaker – Between tradition and innovation” will see Toffolo explore the secrets of this ancient art. The ten days dedicated to Venice will be animated also tastings of typical products and will come to an end with an Venetian baroque music concert by students of the Lisbon Conservatory. (Red)
