The President of the Hellenic Republic, Karolos Papoulias, and his Italian counterpart, Giorgio Napolitano, opened the “Classicism and Europe: The European destiny of Greece and Italy” exhibition at the Quirinale Palace in Rome, on Friday, 28 March. The opening was attended by the Greek Ministers of Education and Culture & Sports, Konstantinos Arvanitopoulos and Panos Panagiotopoulos and Italian Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Culture and Tourism Federica Mogherini, and Dario Franceschini.

 

The opening ceremony was followed by a concert with works by Greek and Italian composers, which featured pianist Alexandros Kapelis and soprano Myrto Papatanasiou and was hosted by the Greek Presidency of the Council of the EU at the Quirinale’ s Cappela Paolina.

 

The exhibition, which includes a number of emblematic works from major museums in Greece and Italy – 16 masterpieces of Greco-Roman antiquity and Byzantine art, and eight contemporary works – is organised by the Presidency of the Italian Republic in collaboration with the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Office of the Hellenic Presidency, and the Ministry of Culture & Sports, within the framework of the Greek Presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2014 and its successor, the Italian Presidency.

 

This exhibition of major cultural and political importance – a proof of the common cultural heritage at the foundations of a United Europe – will be on display at the Quirinale Palace through 15 July, after which it will be presented at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

 

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