Alla Luce di Dante. Sculpture of shadow

This exhibition, a homage to Dante Alighieri seven hundred years after his death, is part of the cultural initiatives that the city of Montevarchi has planned for 2021 in order to celebrate the Great poet.
Stella Battaglia, an artist whose research moves between Art and Science, presents a suggestive and spectacular sculpture of shadow. The work was created based on the Euclidean optical geometric model of vision, and on the famous profile of Dante painted by Sandro Botticelli.
Alla Luce di Dante is a piece made up of some books untidily laid out on a desk, and a light spot. When the light comes on, the silhouette of Botticelli’s famous profile of Dante is projected onto the opposite wall. The books not only allude to the vast number of works written by the Great Poet himself, but also to the vast amount of literature which flourished in the light of his art. Dante is the father of the Italian language, and his profile continues to light the way for it.

Stella Battaglia
Born in Modica in 1961, after working in Dance and Theatre she turned to the figurative arts and focused on
the theme of perspective and Anamorphosis. She obtained her diploma at the Accademia di Belle Arti
of Florence and deepened her knowledge of optical distortions in sculpture.
She reflected on the relationship between the object and vision, between the two dimensions of the image
and the three dimensions of the sculpture (2D-3D). This led her to create works using different materials- both traditional and synthetic- and also create video installations. The image is a starting point for a
shape which develops in space in a rhythmic and dynamic way, and movement becomes the
fundamental element resonating with the person observing the work.
She collaborates regularly with the Museo Galileo, the Istituto di Storia della Scienza and the Faculty of Architecture at the Università degli Studi di Firenze.