Summary
Dante (1265–1321) was a major Italian poet of the Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy originally called La Grande Commedia and later called Divina, is considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature. In Italy he is known as il Sommo Poeta ("the Supreme Poet") or just il Poeta. Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio are also known as "the three fountains" or "the three crowns".
This bust was first located at Treasury Gardens and presented to Council by the Dante Alighieri Society around the time of the 1956 Olympics. However, by 1968 it had to be removed due to damage from ongoing vandalism. In 1999 it was briefly located in Argyle Square. In both locations the work proved particularly vulnerable due to its modest scale. When new it displayed well, though this was probably due to the peerless charm of white Carrara marble as much as its form. It would have been better from the first if it had been located indoors or within a more secure public circulation space.
The bust is an oddity in relation to other representational forms within the City Collection. It is neither a monarch, civic leader or military figure; nor is it a once popular cultural figure with a self-evident bond with the era in which it was created, for example Burke and Wills, Edith Cavell or Lindsay Gordon. Indeed, it is difficult to argue with the proposition that the bust was accepted by Council because ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’. There is no evidence that it met any acquisition criteria. Equally, there are other comparable oddities in the Collection, notably the busts of the Apollo and Hercules at the entrance to Queen Victoria Gardens.
