(ANS – Buenos Aires) – The exhibition on the figure of Fr Alberto De Agostini in South America continues. Arriving in 2024 from Italy and retouched by the staff of the Italian-Argentine University Consortium (CUIA) for the Argentine public, after a first exhibition at the Italian Cultural Institute in Buenos Aires (last May), it arrived on 9 May 2025 at the Italian School ‘Dante Alighieri’ and was entitled ‘Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. From the explorations of Alberto Maria De Agostini to Italian-Argentine research on geology and the natural environment.
The opening was addressed by the President of the Dante Alighieri Association of Buenos Aires, Prof. Mario Basti, and, online from Italy, the two curators of the exhibition, Fr Francesco Motto, SDB, of the Salesian Historical Institute, and Prof. Nicola Bottiglieri, from the University of Cassino, followed by Prof. Alberto Renzullo, Coordinator of the Scientific Council of the CUIA and lecturer at the University of Urbino, and Prof. Alejandro Tassone, from the University of Buenos Aires.
Among the many fields in which Fr De Agostini made a name for himself internationally (as a missionary, photographer, geographer, filmmaker, writer…), the exhibition presentation highlighted his work as a documentary photographer and explorer and naturalist. Unpublished information and wide-ranging considerations were offered to the qualified audience present in the Auditorium of the Dante Alighieri.
Meanwhile, for a year now, a commemorative video of Fr De Agostini filmed in the Strait of Magellan by the famous Italian training ship ‘Amerigo Vespucci’ during its recently concluded round-the-world voyage has been circulating continuously on social media. The proceedings of the Roma-UPS 2022 conference, Fr Alberto de Agostini, L’ultimo esploratore della ‘fine del mondo’ (1883-1960) (Rome LAS 2023), edited by F. Motto, are also enjoying considerable publishing success.
The exhibition will remain open at the Dante Alighieri School until the end of June, before moving to the Salesian Pio IX Institute in Buenos Aires and various other venues in Argentina that have already requested it. The relevant calendar is currently being prepared.
Source: ANS – “Agencia iNfo Salesiana”