Eduardo González
The director of the Instituto Cervantes, Luis García Montero, begins a two-day visit to Rome today, where he will be received in a private audience by Pope Francis and will sign the first collaboration agreement with the Società Dante Alighieri, an institution created in Italy in 1889 for the promotion of the Italian language and for the dissemination of its culture in the world.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio will receive Luis García Montero tomorrow Thursday in his private Library. During the audience, according to a press release from Cervantes yesterday, the director of Cervantes will underline the institution’s commitment to the values of democracy, solidarity and dialogue through cultural links and the development of education as a driving force of opportunities.
This Wednesday will see the signing of the first agreement between the Instituto Cervantes and its Italian counterpart, the Società Dante Alighieri, the Italian language certifying body and member of the European network of cultural institutions (EUNIC) that carries out its work through four hundred offices in 60 countries. The event will take place at Palazzo Firenze, the historic headquarters of the Società Dante Alighieri.
The collaboration agreement between both institutions will allow the exchange of good practices and experiences in the academic, certification and commercial fields, as well as the promotion of joint initiatives in the Mediterranean area. García Montero will sign the agreement with the president of the Dante Alighieri, Andrea Riccardi.
The signing, which will be attended by the Spanish ambassador, Miguel Fernández-Palacios, and the directors of the Instituto Cervantes in Italy, completes an important step forward in cultural relations between the two countries after the signing, last May in Madrid, of a memorandum of understanding with the Istituto Italiano di Cultura.
During his trip to Rome, García Montero will also take the opportunity to meet with the management of the RomaEuropa Festival, one of the most important performing arts festivals on the continent and an ally of the Instituto Cervantes, and to participate in a series of events in honour of the José Jiménez Lozano Cervantes Prize organised together with the Rey Juan Carlos University and the rectorate of the Spanish Church of Santa Maria in Monserrato.
With four centres in Italy (Rome, Milan, Naples and Palermo), the transalpine country is one of the most important for the Instituto Cervantes in terms of academic activity and certification. It stands out, in particular, as the country with the greatest popularity of the DELE certificate worldwide – with almost 30,000 official certificates issued each year – after Spain. Almost one in three DELE diplomas is obtained in Italy.
