The Uffizi Galleries have lent six 16th-century drawings to Lucca Comics & Games, where they are shown alongside the manga of Japanese master Go Nagai in an exhibition devoted to Dante's Inferno. The display is part of Go Nagai – Sun, Heart and Steel, an exhibition dedicated to the creator of Mazinger Z, Devilman and Jeeg, running from 28 October to 1 November 2026 at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni of the Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lucca.

Five of the Uffizi sheets are illustrations of Dante's Divine Comedy from a series made between 1586 and 1588 by the Florentine painter Federico Zuccari, best known for his frescoes on the dome of Florence Cathedral. The sixth is a copy of Michelangelo's celebrated Damned Soul, attributed to Francesco Salviati, one of the leading figures of Mannerism. The drawings depict scenes including the City of Dis, the circles of Malebolge and Lucifer in the Ninth Circle.

For the first time, these Renaissance images are placed beside the Divine Comedy illustrations Nagai made in the 1990s, which were themselves inspired by Gustave Doré's 19th-century engravings that helped popularise Dante's imagery. Matching scenes from the two bodies of work are hung thematically together, setting modern manga against late 16th-century drawing in a direct dialogue across the realms of the Inferno.

The loan continues the cultural partnership between the festival and the Florentine museum. A dedicated space within the Nagai exhibition hosts the encounter, presenting the two very different visual languages as parallel readings of the same poem, five centuries apart.