On 16 February last, the Vice President of the Virgil Society in London, Prof. Carla Dionisotti, signed the “Letter of Intent” according to which the prestigious English Institution becomes “honorary partner” of the Aeneas Route Network as 45° Cultural Route of the Council of Europe.
This agreement – reached thanks to the committment of dr. Sandra Gatti and Filomena Giannotti of the Aeneas Route Association – provides for a mutual planning and organization of activities, aimed at promoting the cultural and artistic heritage of Aeneas’ myth.
It also represents the crowning of the famous Thomas Stearns Eliot’s words on the Aeneid as a poem which is crucial for the European identity and civilization: “Our classic, the classic of all Europe, is Virgil”. A sentence that Eliot pronounced on the occasion of the Virgil Society foundation, in 1943, and that the Aeneas Route Association, at the moment of its birth in 2018, has included among its principles, electing Aeneas and the Virgilian story as a symbol of the common European roots.
A conference involving the Aeneas Route Association and the Virgil Society is being organized by the University of Siena (which dr. Giannotti is affiliated to) to celebrate this agreeement.
