Back from the Underworld: Mia's Dante Tapestry

The Minneapolis Institute of Art is bringing back a piece of the Italian Renaissance that's been hidden away for nearly seventy years. The Meeting of Dante and Virgil is a monumental tapestry by Francesco Salviati, and it's on view in the Miles and Shirley Fiterman Gallery (330) from July 11, 2026, through January 31, 2027. It's a rare thing to see in person: the only early Medicean tapestry in a public collection outside Italy, and widely considered the most important Italian Renaissance tapestry in the United States.

It's a massive piece, standing 17.4 feet tall. It was woven in the 1540s at the Florentine workshop Duke Cosimo I de' Medici founded in 1545, where he recruited the master weaver Jan Rost from Brussels. Salviati, a painter, handled the design and the cartoons between 1546 and 1548, and the weaving itself took place between 1547 and 1549. The subject is just as it sounds: Dante and Virgil meeting in the underworld, a scene from the Divine Comedy rendered in silk and wool.

If you're wondering why it's only coming out now, it's because it's spent almost seven decades in storage. Structural weaknesses, losses, and fragile silk kept it off view for a long time. It's just come through a major conservation by the Midwest Art Conservation Center, funded by the TEFAF Museum Restoration Fund in partnership with the Bank of America Art Conservation Project. That work included wet cleaning, stabilization, selective reweaving, and a new support system to hold its weight.

One thing to keep in mind: the tapestry is light-sensitive, so it can only be shown for a limited time. It's on view through January 31, 2027, in the Miles and Shirley Fiterman Gallery (330) at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and admission is free.