An Italian art exhibition entitled "Apulia Felix Among Greeks Indigenous and Romans" is underway at the Guangzhou Maritime Museum and will last until March 24, 2024.
Nearly 110 guests from China and Italy, including officials, university scholars, and cultural experts, attend the opening ceremony on December 8, 2023.
Located in the southeastern corner of the Apennine Peninsula in Italy, the Apulia Region faces the Balkan Peninsula across the sea. It has a long coastline, superior harbors, and fertile land. In the 8th century BC, ancient Greek immigrants established city-states in the southern Apennine Peninsula and Sicily and called this land "Great Greece". In the following hundreds of years, ancient Greek culture permeated the rich Apulia.
The exhibition takes the six gods in ancient Greek mythology as narrative clues, aiming to unfold a humanistic picture of ancient Greek civilization flourishing in the Apulia Region. All items on display come from eight museums in southern Italy.
Apulia and Guangzhou share similar maritime cultures. Guangzhou has been twinned with Bari, the capital of the Apulia Region, since 1986. Guangdong Province established a friendship with the Apulia Region in 2011.
Qian Hongjie, Deputy Director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the People's Government of Guangdong Province, addressed the opening ceremony. She believes that this exhibition will further deepen the emotional ties between the people of the two places and will build a more solid bridge for mutual understanding and cooperation.
Valerio De Parolis, Consul General of Italy in Guangzhou, also reviewed the profound history of friendship between Apulia and Guangdong. He emphasized that such close ties are based on mutual respect, which makes this exhibition of extraordinary symbolic significance. Through exhibitions and other cultural events, he hopes to promote the development of the cultural and tourism industries in both places.
During the exhibition period, the Guangzhou Maritime Museum also traces the maritime culture and folk beliefs of the Pearl River Delta region over the past few thousand years. Visitors can enjoy the Nanhai God Temple, a famous place where ancient Chinese emperors and ordinary people worshipped the sea while watching the exhibition and feeling the integration of Chinese and Italian curatorial ideas.
In the future, the museum will launch a series of lectures and educational activities on the themes of ancient Greek pottery painting, ancient Greek drama, Apulian architecture, and Apulian Carnival, to bring more interesting experiences to visitors.
The exhibition is jointly hosted by the Regional Government of Apulia,Italy, Guangzhou Huangpu District Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism and Sports Bureau, and Guangzhou Maritime Museum.
