Lucca Comics & Games: Go Nagai’s manga and sixteenth-century drawings from the Uffizi explore Dante’s Inferno side by side

Modern manga and late sixteenth-century drawing come face to face in an unprecedented exploration of Dante’s Inferno. This is one of the highlights of Go Nagai – Sun, Heart and Steel, an exhibition dedicated by Lucca Comics & Games to the great Japanese master, creator of pop-culture icons such as Mazinger Z, Jeeg, Devilman and many other celebrated characters. The exhibition will run from 28 October to 1 November 2026 at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni of the Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lucca.

For the occasion, as part of the cultural partnership between the festival and the Uffizi Galleries, the renowned Florentine museum is bringing six sixteenth-century drawings to Lucca by two major Tuscan artists. Five are illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy from a series created between 1586 and 1588 by the Florentine master Federico Zuccari, renowned for his frescoes on the dome of Florence Cathedral. The sixth is a copy of Michelangelo Buonarroti’s celebrated Damned Soul, attributed to Francesco Salviati, one of the leading figures of Mannerism.

A dedicated exhibition space will thus host a veritable aesthetic dialogue across the realms of the Inferno. For the first time, the illustrations of the Divine Comedy created by Go Nagai in the 1990s — inspired by Gustave Doré’s nineteenth-century illustrations, which helped popularise the imagery of Dante’s poem — will be juxtaposed thematically with comparable scenes depicted by two towering masters of Mannerism around five centuries ago.

DETAILS OF THE ARTWORKS ON DISPLAY:

Federico Zuccari (1540–1541/1609), The City of Dis (Inferno, Cantos VIII–IX), black and red stone on paper, 435 × 595 mm.

Federico Zuccari (1540–1541/1609), Eighth Circle, Malebolge. First Bolgia: Panderers and Seducers (Inferno, Cantos XVII–XVIII), black and red stone on paper, 425 × 590 mm.

Federico Zuccari (1540–1541/1609), Eighth Circle, Fifth Bolgia: Barrators, the Motley Company (Inferno, Cantos XXI–XXII), black and red stone on paper, 430 × 590 mm.

Federico Zuccari (1540–1541/1609), Ninth Circle: Lucifer (Inferno, Cantos XXXII–XXXIV), black and red stone, pen and ink on paper, 440 × 595 mm.

Federico Zuccari (1540–1541/1609), Ninth Circle: The Giants (Inferno, Cantos XXXI–XXXIV), black and red stone on paper, 425 × 585 mm.

Attributed to Francesco Salviati (1510–1563), after Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564), Damned Soul, black stone on paper, 231 × 197 mm.