Our Events in 2026

 

Boccaccio and Bibliomania in Industrial Manchester

SATURDAY 21 FEBRUARY 2026 – 4.20pm for 4.30pm start

Cross Street Chapel, Cross Street, Manchester M2 1NL

 

The year 2025 marked the 650th anniversary of the death of Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375), author of the Decameron and a key figure in the tradition of Italian and European narrative prose.

To round off the celebrations in Italy and around the world, you are invited to a talk exploring Boccaccio’s reception in the North West.

 

Giovanni Boccaccio’s ‘Il Decamerone’ (1348-53) is often described as the ‘human comedy’ in contrast to Dante’s earlier ‘divine comedy’. Yet it has also been described as a ‘mercantile epic’, focusing as it does on the everyday life of late medieval Italy, and especially the self-determining city-states run by the new class of civic merchants. This talk examines the reception of this mercantile epic in mercantile Manchester during the Industrial Revolution. For Boccaccio’s arrival and accommodation in the city’s libraries and reading rooms can be used as a prism through which to read fundamental changes in the social fabric of nineteenth-century Britain. With the emergence of the shock cities of the modern world, education and libraries became accessible to an ever wider social demographic. The arrival of Boccaccio to the industrial Northwest presents a particularly rich case study of this translation of cultural capital during the ‘age of the machines’.   

 

Speaker: Talk by our Honorary President, Prof. Stephen J. Milner (Serena Professor of Italian Studies, The University of Manchester)

Venue: Cross Street Chapel – Cross Street, Manchester M2 1NL

Admission:  members and our students of Italian   FREE   /   non-members   £ 3.00

The talk (in English) will be followed by a social gathering with a glass of wine and nibbles.

To better arrange seating and refreshments, it would be helpful if you could book in advance by emailing us at dante@newfuture.org 

ITALY, YET DIFFERENTLY – Art, archaeology, history in the island of Sardinia

This event is organised in collaboration with the Dante Alighieri Society in Loughborough

SATURDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2026 – 4.20pm for 4.30pm start

Cross Street Chapel, Cross Street, Manchester M2 1NL

 

A talk about the many cultural aspects of Sardegna/Sardinia. This island in the centre of the Mediterranean with a rich history, has oscillated over the centuries between East and West, influenced by Rome and Carthage, Spain and Italy. This unique characteristic is evident in its culture, which has engaged in fruitful dialogues with artistic movements from the Italian mainland throughout the centuries.

Speaker: Alessandro Picciau (President of the Cultural Association Atobius – Cultura e Turismo in Sardegna)

Venue: Cross Street Chapel – Cross Street, Manchester M2 1NL

Admission:  members and our students of Italian   FREE   /   non-members   £ 3.00

The talk (in English) will be followed by a social gathering with a glass of wine and nibbles.

To better arrange seating and refreshments, it would be appreciated if you could book in advance by emailing us at dante@newfuture.org 

 

 

Giornata Mondiale del Cinema Italiano / World Day of Italian Cinema

This event is organised by Societa’ Dante Alighieri Manchester with the support of the Consulate of Italy in Manchester

SATURDAY 24 JANUARY 2026 – 4.00pm for 4.20pm start

Cross Street Chapel, Cross Street, Manchester M2 1NL

                                                      

La Giornata Mondiale del Cinema Italiano è una ricorrenza nazionale che si celebra il 20 gennaio di ogni anno, volta a rafforzare e a valorizzare la cinematografia italiana all’estero.

La data, più precisamente, ricorda la data di nascita del regista italiano Federico Fellini.

 

The World Day of Italian Cinema is celebrated every year on the 20th of January.

The initiative was unanimously established by the Parliamentary Intergroup for Cinema and Performing Arts, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Fellini’s birth (20th January 2020). It has the main purpose to promote abroad the high quality of Italian Cinema, through the work of the new authors as well as the great masters.

To celebrate the day, Societa’ Dante Alighieri Manchester and the Consulate of Italy in Manchester invite you to an award-winning screening.

Il Capitale Umano / Human Capital

by Paolo Virzì – 2013

1h 51m – Italian with English subtitles

Introduction in English by Dr Silvana Serra (PhD in Film Studies)

Paolo Virzì has enjoyed a consistent success from critics and audience alike since his debut. Il Capitale Umano / Human Capital was awarded with the David di Donatello (Italian equivalent of the Oscar) for Best Film and Best Screenplay. It was also selected to represent Italy for the 2014 Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category.

The film deals with a social issue ever more relevant to our times. It also represents the director’s stepping out of his usual stylistic comfort zone, offering an interesting visual experience.

Non mancate / Don’t miss it

The screening will be followed by a small social gathering with a glass of wine and nibbles.

Venue:  Cross Street Chapel, Cross Street, Manchester

Admission:  FREE 

To better arrange seating and refreshments, please book in advance by emailing us at dante@newfuture.org