This sculpture was donated to the Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde in 1965 by the Milan committee of the Società Dante Alighieri as a mark of gratitude on the 7th centenary of the poet’s birth, as attested by the attached plaque. No archival documentation has been found to provide information on the date of casting and provenance of the work, which presents the smooth, regular surface and modern patina characteristic of the middle of the 20th century.

The portrait of the poet, symbolically shown in anguished meditation on the fate of his native land, echoes the iconography inaugurated by Giuseppe Bertini in The Triumph of Dante [1], a celebrated work of stained glass presented at the London Exhibition of 1851. Bertini’s work won enormous success in its evocation of the country’s medieval past and call for patriotic action to emerge from the difficult political situation after the failure of the revolutions of 1848.

Vela developed numerous variations on this iconographic theme, which was greatly cherished by the Romantic culture, from 1857 on. There is in fact a letter of January 1858 from the writer, painter and statesman Massimo D’Azeglio, then also president of the Circolo degli Artisti in Turin, thanking the sculptor for the donation of a bust of Dante, whose current location is unknown.

The spreading of the cult of Dante in the 19th century, together with the civic and political values that the poet had come to symbolise, led to a large-scale resumption of the subject during the struggle for Italian independence and unification. In 1864, on the occasion of the celebrations for the 700th anniversary of the poet’s birth, the city of Padua commissioned Vela to produce two colossal statues of Dante and Giotto for installation in Prato della Valle (currently in the portico of the Palazzo della Ragione). It was from this model that the sculptor also derived a smaller version in 1866 for the façade of his house and studio in Ligornetto (Ligornetto, Museo Vela [2]), bearing witness to his sincere participation in the Risorgimento. Numerous others variants in marble and bronze, often donated by the sculptor himself, are to be found in the major Italian museums, including the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Milan [3], the Museo Revoltella in Trieste and the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Turin.