23 Dec 2024
Notices Events New entry

“MENTORE”: transgenerational event at Museo Virgilio

‘MENTORE: 100 oracular crossing stories to discover Virgil’.

The Virgil Museum: a bridge between identity, imagination and new generations

The Virgil Museum presented itself to the city on 7 December, opening its doors to the public with an articulate and multi-level dramaturgy. The founding idea of the museum is that ‘there is a little bit of Virgil inside each one of us’, a concept that invites visitors to explore their own imagination through the figure of the poet and his works. The museum does not limit itself to a passive experience, but proposes an active journey: an exploration of a physical place, with exhibits to be observed, and at the same time a play with the imagination, transforming the fruition into a personal and creative process.

This is the scenario in which Segni d’infanzia Associazione comes into play, an organisation that for years has been involved in creating experiences capable of generating imagination in the different generations, proposing projects that bring adults, young people and children together in a transgenerational manner. For more than a decade, Segni d’infanzia has also been addressing adolescents and not just children, working on the delicate balance between tradition and innovation, between the local and the international. The ability to create events with a strong theatrical impact and to leave a mark in the collective imagination of all ages, which is the main feature of SEGNI NEW GENERATIONS FESTIVAL, makes the Mantua-based association a suitable interlocutor for the Virgilio Museum.

On the occasion of the Christmas holidays, the artistic direction of the Association was asked to devise a first transgenerational and performative event capable of ‘animating’ the museum. Thus was born ‘MENTORE, 100 oracular stories of crossing over to discover Virgil’, which aligns with the objective of transforming the museum space into a place where the identities of different generations can meet, dialogue and imagine, creating a bridge between past and future through the figure of Virgil. The event is therefore proposed as an opportunity to stimulate the imagination across generations and to reinterpret, together, the poet’s legacy.

Segni d’infanzia, together with the Abruzzese artist Alessandro Lucci – former artistic director of the theatre and art festival ‘Luna del Pozzo’ in Ostuni (BR) – is constructing, from 27 to 30 December 2024, an unprecedented site-specific experience: a performance conceived specifically for the new museum and all its visitors, citizens and tourists aged 12 and over.

MENTORE: the event in detail

From 27 to 30 December, all visitors to the Virgil Museum will have the opportunity to enjoy an immersive experience thanks to MENTORE, the first transgenerational and performative event inside the newly opened Virgil Museum designed for an audience aged 12 and over and accessible to everyone, from citizens to foreign tourists visiting Mantua.

During the opening hours of the museum, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., visitors will meet a mysterious character, dressed in a 1970s brown pinstripe suit, a hat, a green briefcase and a pack of ‘oracular cards’: it will be Alessandro Lucci dressing the role of an enigmatic orator in an oracular reading and narration of stories linked to the figure of Virgil Magician, Poet, Guide.

Upon purchasing the entrance ticket, each visitor will receive an information card about the performance in progress, warning them that, scattered among the eight rooms of the Museum, more than 100 oracular cards – conceived and created by the artist Alessandro Lucci himself – are waiting to be found.

The game winds its way through the rooms, where the visitor can collect one and only one oracular card, unique and unrepeatable, representing a story to be discovered. Continuing the journey through Bucoliche, Georgiche and Eneide it will be possible to meet the artist-narrator ready to reveal the symbol and the story enclosed in the card. A fascinating, intimate and personal journey that combines the playful dimension with poetry.

At the end of the visit, visitors will be able to keep their card as a souvenir of an unrepeatable experience, a personal and evocative encounter with the figure of Virgil and the world evoked by his works.

MENTORE is an interactive, unconventional game that puts adults and children at the centre, the protagonists of an immersive adventure, which children can watch and listen to only as spectators. Defying expectations, this unprecedented experience stimulates curiosity, reflection and creativity, bringing the public closer to the figure of Virgil, one of the greatest poets of antiquity, and inviting young people and adults to get involved.

With this special event, Segni d’infanzia Associazione closes an extraordinary year, renewing its presence on the artistic and cultural scene in Mantua. This event also marks the beginning of the countdown towards the 20th edition of SEGNI New Generations Festival, the international art, theatre and performance festival dedicated to the new generations, organised by the Mantua Association. The date is already set: from 27 October to 29 November 2025, Mantua will once again be the stage for an unmissable event, with an edition to be discovered.

Opening hours and access
With a regular museum ticket, from 27 to 29 December from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Monday 30 December from 9 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.