A‘The Route of Aeneas: Myth, Journey, Art and Cultural Heritage’ is an exhibition organised by the Route of Aeneas Association in the municipality of Çanakkale, the city on the Dardanelles Strait that is home to the UNESCO site of Troy. We are in the place that marks the start of the Council of Europe’s Cultural Route in Turkey, where the legendary journey of Aeneas began. The exhibition took place as part of the 62nd edition of the International Festival of Troy from 9 to 20 August 2025 at the MAHAL Sanat cultural centre in the Fevzipaşa district, in the centre of Çanakkale.
Organised to celebrate the renewal of the Route’s certification for the 2025-2030 period and the 14th Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe Forum, which will be held in Turkey this year, in Cappadocia, from 22nd to 24th October, the exhibition shows the historic and cultural dimensions of Aeneas’ myth. Its preview in Troy gives the project a unique and symbolic meaning.
Curated by the president of the Association Giovanni Cafiero and Dr. Sanda Gatti, member of the board, the exhibition goes over Aeneas’ journey — from his escape from the burning city of Troy to his role in the founding myth of Rome — highlighting the richness of the material and immaterial cultural heritage which goes with this story.
The exhibition highlights the key elements of the myth of Aeneas and the various cultural and artistic dimensions of the cultural route: archaeology, classical epics, how the myth was used in modern and contemporary literature. Dedicated to the fortune of the myth of Aeneas in figurative art and in music, there are two parts of the
exhibition, with a particular cultural meaning, since they show the persistence
of the myth during time, exposing the works of Flemish and Italian Renaissance
painters and emphasize the many interpretations in music (from Monteverdi to
Purcell, from Haendel to Mozart) of one of the founding myths of the European
culture.
On the occasion of the opening
of the exhibition, on the 9th of August 2025 took place the international
seminar with the participation of president Giovanni Cafiero, Prof. Rüstem
Aslan, Director of the Trojan excavations, Sandra Gatti of the Aeneas Route
Association and Fabio Morotti of the IULM University of Milan who presented his
work, Alneid, telling the myth during the era of artificial intelligence. The
video, which is part of the cooperation protocol between Aeneas Route and the
prestigious university of Milan, is also the result of the collaboration with
Karma Lab of the Koç University of Istanbul.
This work, in line with the
mission of the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe of linking cultural
promotion with collaborations and exchanges between researchers at a European
level, represents the first experience of creating a video animation with
generative AI based on verses from classical epic poetry.
Among the audience were
prominent members of the local community and numerous students from Çanakkale
University, and the event offered interesting prospects on the uniqueness of
the Aeneas Route in European cultural history, enriching the context of the
exhibition and facilitating the diffusion of our shared European cultural
heritage.
The speech by the president of
the Aeneas Route Association, recalling the contribution of the great French
historian Fernand Braudel (1902-1985) to our understanding of the origins of
European culture, emphasized that the Mediterranean in its broader sense is the
point of reference for the origins of Europe, identifying the original nuclei
of our culture in the ancient civilizations that arose around its basin.
At the heart of his speech
were reflections on Braudel’s work on the Mediterranean and his statement that
‘History is nothing more than a constant questioning of the past in the name of
the problems, curiosities and even anxieties and anguish of the present time
that surround and besiege us’.
