Italy would perhaps not be Italy if the dreams of the North did not surround its landscapes, if it was not of all countries the most real and at the same time the most susceptible to fantasy, the one most of all invented by poets. (Antal Szerb)
Beginning with these texts and building the exhibition on them, so to say, we have tried to create a townscape that evokes their dreams, presents their experience and gives shape to their visions. This “imagined town”, offered as a collective perspective or at least a segment of their experiences gained at very different locations in Italy – in both a cultural and a geographical sense – will hopefully not only provide the visitor with the means to gain a sense of the impulse affecting Hungarian writers travelling to Italy but also facilitate a renewed appreciation of its inspiring literary influence. We hope that visitors will be able to encounter the experience of personally meeting the world imagined from their readings in the space of the dialogue between the visual scenes and the townscapes described in the selected texts.
