In the presence of His Excelency Roberto Vellano, Ambassador of Italy in Cuba, Fernando León Jacomino, Vice Minister of Culture, Perla Rosales, Deputy General Director of the Office of the Historian of the Havana(OHCH), Javier Leal, son of the Historian of the City Eusebio Leal Spengler, other members of the Diplomatic Corp accredited in the island, members of the Italian Embassy of Italy in Cuba and other guests, took place the unveiling of this sculpture-authored by sculptor José Villa Soberón-which was the first activity commemorating the 23rd Week of the Italian Culture in the Greater of the Antilles.

Mr. Roberto Vellano claimed that all of Italy has been mobilized, as hundreds and hundreds of cultural events in his country and abroad have been organized to tribute the 7th centuries of the death of the creator of the Inferno, and Cuba could not miss the opportunity to be included. His Excellency also pointed out that not many countries can erect a statue of this quality, of this magnitude, in the very center of the city.

Dante is the father if the Italian language. Dante is also an important reference for the national entity of Italy because through his work he constituted not only a linguistic unity but a political and ethical ideal that centuries later would contribute in a decisive way to the unity of the country, he said.

Michael González, Director of the OHCH, in his opening speech, said that no better place could have been chosen that the Plazuela de Santo Domingo- a place that holds relevant significance for universal culture and literature-to unveil the statue, right where the statue of Luis de Camoe (father of the Portuguese Language), William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes are located.

Dante Alighieri´s journey is a journey into the interior, a journey to subconscious, to the behavior that we have to measure ourselves, to our moral code, to how life is going to behave, to how Hell, Purgatory and Paradise are described and perceived, what to find and how to look for in the earthly life, how to think about chance and how to handle destiny, said González.

We think in Dante Alighieri and we think about Eusebio Leal among all things. We think about him as the creative father of this statue’s project, as the rest of the statues hold nearby here. We think in his deep relationship to Italy, that boosted the Italian Culture in Cuba and the latinidad.  We think of Eusebio´s first conference in 1976 about Florence. Later, in 1977 he would travel to Italy by the first time to later expose in many sceneries of the OHCH the values of the Italian culture, the classic world, the ancient world.

Thanks to this he would also have his training at History of the Arts, visit that would open to him the gates of restoration, while appreciating how the monuments were restored, the treatment of the heritage management carried out there and all that, evidently provide him with a strength to keep on and set pauses in the restoration model of the Office of the Historian of Havana, concluded the Heritage Director of the OHCH.

Later, the presence of the Italian author in the Cuban culture was addressed in the TV Show Mesa Redonda under the title The bound between Dante Alighieri and Cuba, with specialist from the University of Havana, the Centro de Estudios Martianos and Casa de las Américas, taken place at the Centro para la interpretación de las Relaciones Culturales Cuba-Europa.

Taken from Havana Radio