The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences will take part for the seventh consecutive year in the European Heritage Days – Sofia initiative, organized jointly with Sofia Municipality, the Ministry of Culture and the French Cultural Institute. On Saturday, 18 September 2021, the doors of the central building of BAS at 1, 15 November Str. will be open for visitors from 10 am to 3 pm. A guide will show guests around the Academy and introduce them to the history of the oldest institution in modern Bulgaria. In the “Prof. Marin Drinov” Hall, a film about the history of BAS will be screened.
The exhibition “Dante Alighieri – 700 Years of Divine Poetry” will be shown in the foyer of BAS. The exhibition has been prepared by the Central Library of BAS. Included are the first attempts at translating Dante into Bulgarian, which began in 1883 in the pages of the magazine “Bulgarian Review”, continued in “Bulgarian Christomathy” by I. Vazov and K. Velichkov (1884), as well as in translations by Kiril Hristov, Milko Ralchev, Ivan Ivanov and Lyuben Lyubenov, etc. Translations of The Divine Comedy into English, French, German and Russian from the personal libraries of Prof. Marko Balabanov, Stoyan Mikhailovsky, Dr. Nikola Sakarov, Prof. Tom Tomov are presented. Special attention is paid to the editions of Dante in Italian, kept in the collections of the Central Library of BAS, the oldest of which are „La Divina Commedia col comento del P. Bonaventura Lombardi“ (1847), “Opere minori” precedute da discorso filologico-critico di P. I. Fraticelli (1855) and “La Divina Commedia” by the Florentine publisher Fratelli Alinari of 1902 which contains drawings and prints by contemporary Italian artists created especially for it. The illustrations in this publishing masterpiece reflect Dante’s immense popularity as well as the influence of Symbolism, Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau in Italy. Bulgarian and foreign critique of Dante Alighieri is also included. Many of the books feature illustrations by the great French artist and engraver Gustave Doré.
