Five days before Italy’s official Dante Day on March 25, 2021, you can get a head start on the 700th anniversary celebrations by “meeting” the Supreme Poet himself, in a LIVE STREAM conversation DIRECT FROM FLORENCE, ITALY, hosted by Professor Eric Nicholson of Syracuse University Florence and NYU Florence. Through a special time travel performance, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) will appear before your eyes, not only to tell you of his life in late medieval Italy, but also to talk with you about his ideas, his poems, and even his views on the modern world. What inspired him to write Inferno? What were his favorite books, songs, works of art, food and drink in 1300, and what are his favorite ones in 2021? What would his advice be to readers of “The Divine Comedy”? How might he update his poem to connect it with today’s events and people? And to the worldwide web? These are just some of the many questions that you might put to Dante during this unique interactive event.

For the past twenty years, Eric Nicholson (Ph.D., Yale University) has been teaching courses in literature and theatre studies at Syracuse University Florence, and at New York University, Florence. At both these venues and elsewhere, he has also directed numerous productions of classic plays, among them Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Tempest. Beyond lecturing, directing, and publishing widely in his field, Eric's professional activity extends to acting, voice work, and public presentation: credits include Oberon in the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino production of Purcell's Fairy Queen (Teatro Goldoni Florence, 2013), and Fool/Theseus in “Promised Endings: an Experimental Work-in-Progress based on Oedipus at Colonus and King Lear” (Verona, 2018). He is the narrator of the English video documentary for the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Firenze, and of English audio guides to museums in the Tuscan cities of Grosseto, and Massa Marittima. In full historical costume, he has appeared as Lorenzo the Magnificent, Leonardo da Vinci, and others in several live performance events, videos, and broadcasts, and most recently (2021) as Dante and Boccaccio for Making Art and History Come to Life.