MICHAELMAS, 2017 TOIA MAGAZINE # 80

THE OXFORD ITALIAN ASSOCIATION

THE FUTURE OF BRITISH-ITALIAN RELATIONS

A LECTURE BY HMA JILL MORRIS, INTRODUCED BY THE RT HON THE LORD PATTEN OF BARNES, CHANCELLOR, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

ill Morris, British Ambassador to Italy, will give her view on Jthe current state of British- Italian relations and the prospects for the future. In the wake of the Brexit Referendum in the UK and at a time of geopolitical and economic uncertainty throughout Europe, she is well placed to do so. From the Embassy at Porta Pia, the Ambassador has a unique perspective on developments in Italy and emerging policy in London, as well ©Governo Italiano as having an important role to play in © Uk in Italy developing the bilateral relationship and overcoming challenges. HMA Jill Morris on her first day as Morris has previously stressed the Ambassador to the Republic of Italy importance of good relations between the UK and Italy: “We are fortunate to field: which is good news for the UK and born in Chester and studied Modern enjoy deep and positive relations with for those wishing to do business in Italy. Languages at Southampton (MA) and Italy in almost every area, from science In this networked world, our fates are ever Warwick (MPhil) Universities. She joined to security; and from foreign policy to more intertwined: if Italy prospers, so does the Diplomatic Service in 1999. food. As we seek to manage a period of the UK – and vice versa.” profound geopolitical change, which Jill Morris has been Ambassador includes Britain’s rethinking of its to Italy and San Marino since July relationship with the EU, continuing to 2016. From 2012 to 2015, Jill served as i Mordan Hall, St Hugh’s College, strengthen those relationships matters Director for Europe in the Foreign & St Margaret’s Road, 7.30 p.m. now more than ever. The UK fully Commonwealth Office. She had previously drinks reception, 8.00 p.m. lecture, intends to work closely with Italy on headed the Counter-Proliferation (2010- on Monday, 30 October, fighting terrorism, defence and security, 12) and Consular Strategy (2008-10) 2017 Entry: Members £2, migration and every aspect of foreign Departments. Earlier in her career she non-members £5, students under policy. The same is true in the economic served in Brussels and Cyprus. Jill was 30 free of charge.

For further information go to www.toia.co.uk

www.fcagroup.com www.cnhindustrial.com TOIA MAGAZINE # 80

PROFESSOR PETER HAINSWORTH ON AGNELLI-SERENA PROFESSOR OF ITALIAN, MARTIN MCLAUGHLIN

Martin McLaughlin retires this autumn from his post as the Agnelli-Serena Professor of Italian at Oxford University, a post he has held since 2001. Oxford is very much his second home after Glasgow, where he was born and grew up. He studied Classics there but then came to Oxford to complete a second degree (in Italian and Classics), before embarking on a DPhil. He then went back to Scotland in 1977 as a lecturer in Italian at Edinburgh University, before returning to Oxford in 1990. On 5 June 2017, in a packed Taylorian Hall, he was presented with a volume of essays written in his honour by colleagues, friends and former pupils (plus one by Martin’s daughter, Mairi) and edited by two Oxford colleagues, Guido Bonsaver and Giuseppe Stellardi, and an old friend from Leeds University, Brian Richardson. Cultural Reception, Translation and Transformation from Medieval to Modern Italy is a substantial and tangible sign of how highly Martin is regarded academically. Esteem and liking for Martin extends way beyond the academic community, as the sheer number of people in the Hall plainly showed. Martin and Cathy are very active presences in TOIA. He will continue to be its Chair, showing the same friendliness, attentiveness, commitment and good humour that he shows to undergraduates, post-graduates, however demanding they are, and to colleagues in Oxford, Scotland, Italy and the USA (to name the parts of the world Cathy and Martin are most connected with). In fact, they have always been great ambassadors for Italy and all things Italian, including wine and food as well as literature and culture. Martin has also been a great ambassador for the humanities generally. to be concentrating on packing his books, a paper at the Oxford Dante Society when His generosity of spirit has been he willingly became substitute chairman the invited speaker had to drop out at the repeatedly shown in the way he steps of the Modern Languages Faculty when last moment – the paper itself being a forward at moments of crisis. In his final a temporary but large gap suddenly resounding success. He has always played term, when he might have been expected yawned, and then also volunteered to give a very important part in the research

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In many ways, Martin has continued the work of his immediate predecessor in the Agnelli-Serena chair, John Woodhouse, (who published the first book in English on Calvino in 1968), and of John’s predecessor, Cecil Grayson, who was Martin’s own supervisor as a DPhil student in the 1970s and was a Professor Martin distinguished editor of the Renaissance McLaughlin writer and architect, Leon Battista Alberti. Martin has played a major part activities of the whole faculty, not least in amount to revitalise the notion of in reshaping Alberti’s image, not least in his work for Legenda, which is in effect imitation, which he sees not as a dull making us see that he was a much more now the publishing arm of Oxford Modern and pedantic business but instead as fun and intriguing writer than we used to Languages. Martin played a crucial role a creative reading of the past without think him. in bringing it back from the brink of which major masterpieces of the period Running through his work are the extinction, when it was particularly under could not have been written. Second, classical virtues of clarity, in-depth threat. The last piece in the Festschrift is there is modern literature, especially the mastery of the field in terms of knowledge, by Graham Nelson, the managing editor of work of Italo Calvino. Martin’s book on and respect for the texts he writes about. Legenda, who concludes the whole book Calvino is innovative, incisive and one Whatever he writes is highly readable and by singling out Martin’s ‘conviction that of the critical books on Italian literature informative, as well as having the power the Humanities are not one but many, that most read by students, to judge from to enthuse and inspire. But Martin also they are a collective undertaking and that the fact that there are 28 copies spread treats the text in question with respect the well-spring of the Humanities is the across Oxford libraries. And then there and treats the reader of both that text and willingness to participate.’ is his work as a translator, again specially of what he himself has to say as an adult, Martin’s academic work, which of Calvino, for which he has rightly who should not have a particular position undoubtedly will not be stopped by won wide acknowledgement and major imposed but who should with the help retirement, centres on three areas which literary awards. Martin is a modest provided be able to make his or her mind may look separate but which have always person, and would never flaunt the up. As Dante said, addressing the reader overlapped. First, there is the relationship honours he has rightly received, which in Paradiso 10, ‘Messo t’ò innanzi, omai between Italian Renaissance writing include the marvellously sonorous title of per te ti ciba’. (I have set it before you, now and thought, in Italian and in Latin, ‘Commendatore dell’Ordine della Stella feed on by yourself). Martin has done an and classical literature. Here Martin’s della Solidarietà Italiana’ which he was enormous amount to help readers of all publications have done an enormous awarded by the President of Italy in 2008. sorts feed themselves.

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MONA LISA: THE PEOPLE AND THE PAINTING

A LECTURE BY EMERITUS PROFESSOR MARTIN KEMP

The identity of Leonardo’s mother has, until now, been shrouded in mystery. As revealed in the book Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting by Professor Martin Kemp and Dr Giuseppe Pallanti, Leonardo’s mother can now be identified as 15-year-old orphan Caterina di Meo Lippi, who gave birth to Leonardo on 15 April, 1452. There have been many theories regarding the identity of Leonardo’s mother, including that she was a slave of Eastern descent who was given the name Caterina. New research undertaken in Emeritus Professor the archives of Vinci show that in 1451, in Martin Kemp a farmhouse under a mile from the town, there lived the 15-year-old Caterina di Meo, shedding light on Leonardo’s maternal The following year, a daughter was born family tree for the first time. Caterina lived to Caterina and Antonio, the first of their with her infant brother Papo; they had lost five children. their parents, and their grandmother had Leonardo’s birth was publicly recently brought them to live in her house celebrated with his baptism on 16 April in the hamlet of Mattoni. Poor, vulnerable, 1452. Prominent citizens were registered and with no prospects, Caterina became at the baptism as godparents and the baby pregnant by Ser Piero da Vinci during was welcomed into the family – as was one of the ambitious young lawyer’s visits common with illegitimate children at that to his hometown in July 1451. Ser Piero time – and he was brought up in the house was then forging a highly successful career of his grandfather, Antonio da Vinci. in Florence. Mona Lisa: The People and the An intricate web of evidence supports Painting illuminates the true story of the the identification of Caterina di Meo as Mona Lisa using previously undiscovered Leonardo’s mother, including Antonio da archival information about the families Vinci’s tax return on 28 February 1458 of both Leonardo da Vinci and Lisa del which asserts that Leonardo, his five- Giocondo, the subject of the portrait. year-old grandson, was still living with Newly documented detail relating to the him while Leonardo’s mother is recorded participants’ lives enable the authors to as married to ‘Acchattabriga di Piero del ground the Mona Lisa in reality, and Vaccha’ (Antonio di Piero Buti, a local develop a new theory of the Mona Lisa as farmer who the da Vinci family did indeed a ‘universal picture’. portrait is a product of real people with help secure as Caterina di Meo’s husband “In this book, we have concentrated on ordinary lives. We sought to bring back soon after Leonardo’s birth). A modest real people doing real things in real places a sense of reality into the creation of the dowry would have been provided by Ser at real times. Above all, we cut through the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. Leonardo Piero to close the matter and leave him free suppositions and the myths about Leonardo was doing extraordinary things, but the to make a suitable marriage in Florence. and his work to show that the Mona Lisa context that gave rise to the portrait was no

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less embedded in the daily business of life in Renaissance Florence than when Lisa’s husband, Francesco del Giocondo, imported leather from Ireland. It is from these human circumstances we can see that what began as a portrait assumes the guise of a ‘universal picture’, in which Leonardo strove for his ultimate remaking of human and natural worlds through his imagination,” explains Professor Martin Kemp. Alongside the revelations about Leonardo’s mother and birthplace, the book includes a wealth of new information about the ambitious merchant who married into the old gentry of Lisa’s family; Lisa’s life as a wife and mother, her association with sexual scandals, and her later life in a convent; and the career and possessions of Leonardo’s father Ser Piero. It also features chapters on the meaning of the portrait illuminated through Renaissance love poetry; how Leonardo’s sciences of optics, psychology, anatomy and geology are embraced in his poetic science of art; and recent scientific examinations which disclose how the painting evolved to assume its present appearance in Leonardo’s experimental hands.

Professor Kemp’s lecture will be interspersed by poetry readings in Italian.

Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting, by Professor Martin Kemp FBA and Dr Giuseppe Pallanti, was published by The Oxford University Press in June 2017. Martin Kemp is Emeritus Professor in the History of Art at Trinity College, Oxford University, and one of the world’s leading authorities on Leonardo da Vinci; Giuseppe Pallanti has been researching the archival history of the del Giocondo and da Vinci families for many years.

i The Main Conference Room, Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street Entrance (N.B. not Walton Street), on Monday, 16 October, lecture at 6.30 p.m. followed by drinks reception and book signing at 7.30 p.m. Entry: free of charge. All welcome.

For further information go to www.toia.co.uk

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HOW HUMAN WAS MUSSOLINI?

A LECTURE BY PROFESSOR RICHARD BOSWORTH

Professor Richard Bosworth

How human was Benito Mussolini? is not an original query. It is also a perilous one, given the unfinished effort by much Italian popular culture to fondly depict the Fascist dictator and his times. Markers in this regard might be Indro Montanelli’s Il buonanimo Mussolini (1947), Silvio Berlusconi’s statement in 2003 to English journalist, Nicholas Farrell, that ‘Mussolini never killed anyone’ and the stubborn present survival of baroque conspiracy theories about how and why the Duce died on 28 April 1945. In reality, commentary on Mussolini’s rule must start by underlining that it brought a million people prematurely to their graves. The tally includes more than 7,000 Italian Jews who perished in the sordid Italian version of the Holocaust, 3,000, the clear majority Anti-Fascists, who died in the civil disputes that accompanied the imposition of the regime 1920-4, more than 450,000 Italian soldiers and civilians who perished in the dictatorship’s aggressive wars and another half a million of the peoples of Libya, Ethiopia and the rest of Italy’s fragile and unrewarding empire, liquidated in battle or ‘normal’ administration. Yet so long as the temptations of nostalgia and ‘wromance’ are held in check, ©TIME the man and dictator, Benito Mussolini, Benito Mussolini can be seriously examined, in a process

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that can illuminate much about his Italy and about the nature of other dictators and dictatorships down to our own times. The examination is greatly enriched by the vast documentary evidence, only recently become fully available in the Archivio Centrale dello Stato, of the diary of his last lover, Claretta Petacci, and her linked family papers. It is this record that I have explored at some detail in my new book, Claretta: Mussolini’s Last Lover (Yale UP, 2017). To take the second issue first, Mussolini was the pioneer modern dictator, certainly in a European setting. Yet, in almost all commentary, at least in the UK, his image is a mixture of clown and gangster. When we want to warn ourselves and the children about the wickedness (and disastrous cost) of dictatorship, then it is the German Führer, Adolf Hitler, who dominates our memory. To be sure the ghost of the Nazi chief is sometimes challenged by that of Joseph Stalin, at least in those circles influence and raccomandazioni issues where communism was long assumed to where, quite a lot of the time, Mussolini be the enemy and may still be viscerally did not fully fit theoreticians’ conclusions feared. Yet it is regularly agreed that the about him, Fascism and dictatorship. Holocaust was, and is, the abyss in the As I shall explain at greater length in my history of humankind and that Hitler coming talk, whether my focus is at home was, in his own mind, fanatically and or abroad, ‘Mussolini’s humanness’ is not ‘scientifically’ determined on it, aiming quite an oxymoron; rather it can take us to kill not just the Jews who were in his deep into Italian histories. or Germany’s way but every last Jew that racial pseudo-science could detect. R. J. B. Bosworth is senior research fellow in As a result, ‘bad guys’, like Saddam history, Jesus College, Oxford. A renowned Hussein or Bashar al-Assad or Muammar Italianist, he is the author of more than two Gaddafi, are often damned as ‘another dozen books on Mussolini, fascism, and Hitler’ (at least when some event has turned Italy’s twentieth-century experience. He lives them into bad guys). Such title has major in Oxford, UK. His most recent publication, Clara Petacci policy implications since ‘appeasement’ is Claretta: Mussolini’s Last Lover, received another word with heavy historical cargo. exceptional reviews: workings of the fascist regime and gives a Talk, it is frequently agreed, with fanatical ‘A brilliant insight into Mussolini’s better insight into Mussolini than any other dictators is pointless; they need to be relationship with his most persistent and political biography ever could.’ Stephen overthrown and killed (as Hitler should devoted lover.’ David Laven, author of Venice Gundle, author of Mussolini’s Dream have been well before 1939). and Venetia under the Habsburgs. Factory: Film Stardom in Fascist Italy Yet, with Mussolini, the story is not ‘Picking his way between myths, half- so clear. My next book will be an account truths and downright lies, Richard Bosworth of how the Duce, from c 1932 to c 1938, has brilliantly documented the realities turned in world opinion from a ruler of the sordid and sometimes turbulent i Mordan Hall, St Hugh’s College, whose governance of Italians had much relationship between Benito Mussolini and St Margaret’s Road, 7.30 p.m. to be said for it into a ‘gangster’ (the Clara Petacci.’ John Pollard, University of drinks reception, 8.00 p.m. lecture fastidious Anthony Eden’s term), a bad Cambridge, author of The Papacy in the Age and book signing, on Thursday, guy. To such major theme may be added of Totalitarianism, 1914-1958 26 October. Entry: Members £2, the more domestic question of what we ‘By taking us deep into this private world, non-members £5, students under learn from Claretta about family, gender, this important book illuminates the inner 30 free of charge.

For further information go to www.toia.co.uk

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THE DOROTHY ROWE MEMORIAL LECTURE

GIAMBATTISTA VICO AND THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS A LECTURE BY PROFESSOR GIROLAMO IMBRUGLIA IN COMMEMORATION OF DENIS MACK SMITH

This year’s Rowe Memorial Lecture will be given by Professor Girolamo Imbruglia, commemorating the death of Denis Mack Smith, whose obituary appears below. Girolamo Imbruglia is Professor of Modern History at the University of Naples l’Orientale. He has published numerous monographs, and articles on meta-historiography and the European culture of the Enlightenment and will be lecturing on Vico, the political philosopher and rhetorician, historian and jurist of the Age of Enlightenment. For full details and an abstract please visit www.toia.co.uk

i The Grove Auditorium, Magdalen College, 5.00 p.m., followed by drinks reception, on Tuesday, 21 November. All welcome. Free of charge.

For further information Giambattista Vico go to www.toia.co.uk

OBITUARY OF DENIS MACK SMITH CBE, FBA, MA, FBA, FRSL, GRANDE UFFICIALE DELL’ORDINE AL MERITO DELLA REPUBBLICA ITALIANA (1920–2017)

The death on 11 July 2017 of Denis Mack Italy’s heroic struggle for nationhood, Smith left a great void in the ranks of inspired and driven by the triumvirate Oxford University and deprived historical of Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini. Few studies in both Britain and Italy of another questioned those heroic myths before academic Olympian. For fifty years, Denis Denis added a note of historical reality, Mack Smith’s research on the history of when, without losing his admiration for post-unification Italy made him the world- the finer points of those three heroes, he renowned authority on the topic. After injected more than a pinch of scepticism graduation from Cambridge, where, as a and reality concerning their diverse schoolboy entrant he had won an organ motivations and the condition in which scholarship at Peterhouse, he travelled to they left the united realm. Italy for the first time in 1946, trusting to his First impressions of his chosen brief acquaintance with the language. At the destination might have seemed something time, in both Britain and Italy, myths still of a disillusionment for the young graduate. abounded concerning the Risorgimento, In 1946 Italy was divided politically and

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socially, a defeated, exhausted country, its manipulator, Cavour, admired by Denis territory ruined by the ravages of WW2, for his intelligence and extraordinary Statue of Ovid lacking a recognisable government, its diplomatic skills, but deplored for his in Sulmona former leader assassinated, its monarchy much narrower concern with the greater abolished by a popular referendum, its royal glory of his native province (a precedent family forced into exile after the abdication for the Lega Nord per l’indipendenza of King Victor Emanuel III (and of his son, della Padania). At first, Denis was treated Umberto, in May 1946, king for just 34 summarily by Italian historians. One days). What had happened to the dreams polemical encounter with Renzo De Felice, and high ideals of the early Risorgimento? author of a biography of Mussolini in 8 During that first year, however, Denis volumes, ended in a heated television also made the acquaintance of Benedetto debate between the two, while Rosario Croce, Italy’s most respected liberal Romeo, a celebrated historian of the intellectual, and a declared authority on the achievements of Cavour, another of his early history of Italy’s unification. In Naples targets, went so far as to refuse to shake Croce had the world’s most comprehensive Denis’s hand. Denis gave as good as he library on the subject, and Denis was given got, and, unafraid to modify his scepticism free access (during the hours of darkness concerning Italy’s immediate past, he only!) to the philosopher’s house and went on to write a crushing review of De library. In 1924, even the professedly liberal Felice’s 6,000-word biography. “Not an Croce had given his vote to Mussolini easy read”, Denis observed as an opening following the violent elections of that year, to his review. It is worth noting that Denis and, in one interview had suggested that himself wrote in an impeccably clear style (1962-87), followed by an extraordinary Italy was an invalid, needing the strong and that his prose was invariably enlivened Fellowship of Wolfson College, Oxford medicine of fascism, and that it could with episodes which exposed the folly or (1987-2000). He was awarded many only harm the patient to withdraw the inconsistency of his influential Italian honours, including Italy’s highest civic treatment prematurely. Croce considered adversaries whose language was sometimes honour, nomination as Italy’s Grande fascism as a blip in the development of the disjointed and often pedantic. Ufficiale dell’Ordine al Merito della nation’s history. Denis and he had friendly He went on to write some fifty Repubblica. For many years following discussions, but Denis was strong in his important works on the political effects 1957, he was Chairman of the Oxford opinion that the explanation for Italy’s of the Risorgimento during the period up Association for the Study of Modern Italy, subsequent chaotic politics lay in the to 1998. In the street markets of Rome and supported with his friendly presence political rivalries of the previous century. and Naples, he noted the vast number the thriving Oxford Italian Association Croce’s was another point of view due of books, published during Mussolini’s (TOIA), where in his initial Rowe lecture for revision. dictatorship, which disillusioned citizens he spoke on Italy 1998: Has anything Denis returned to tutorial and other were throwing away in disgust. Shrewdly, changed? On that occasion, more than 150 duties at his old Cambridge college (1947- Denis acquired many volumes cheaply people crammed into the largest room 62), where he remained until his election from those book stalls and sent them back in the Examination Schools to hear him as Senior Research Fellow at All Souls to England. His 1958 volume Italy: A speak, and, as ever, he did not disappoint. (1962-87), followed by an Extraordinary Modern History, revised and reprinted in His talk stressed his admiration for Italy’s Fellowship at Wolfson College (Oxford) 1997 with its Italian version Storia d’Italia improvements in such fields as education (1987-2000). He was awarded many dal 1861 al 1997, ran into print runs of over and literacy, language and communication, honours and prizes, too many to list here, 150,000 copies in Italy and formed the commerce and industry. These but it is typical of the man that two honours standard history of the country for many improvements were offset, he felt by the which head his glory list in Who’s Who were right-thinking people, who preferred the unstable quality of Italian governments, his titles as Public Orator of the Republic unbiased approach they associated with the corruption of governing groups, and of San Marino and Honorary Citizen of his English scholarship, and kept a Mack the inherent weakness of the system of Santa Margherita Ligure, along with his Smith on their bookshelf. In this way Denis proportional representation which had membership of America’s Academy of Arts did much more than inform his readership produced over a hundred warring parties and Sciences. about the truth of their history. He also, for in its first years. Most of those political He set out to investigate the myths a while at least, convinced some to make and social faults he could trace back to the and motives of the Risorgimento in his more rational general judgements about earlier years of the twentieth century. first book,Cavour and Garibaldi: 1860, their country’s future. He died peacefully at home on 11 published in 1954. His portrait of the His career took him from tutorial and July leaving his wife Catherine, his two courageous and self-sacrificing patriot, other duties at his old Cambridge college, daughters and four grandchildren. Garibaldi, physically fighting to unite Peterhouse (1947-62), to his election Italy, contrasted with the cunning political as Senior Research Fellow at All Souls Professor John Woodhouse

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L’ITALIA DELLE MONTAGNE NEL ROMANZO DI

LE OTTO MONTAGNE, EINAUDI, TORINO, 2016

For readers interested in contemporary Italian literature and what to discover next in their trajectory of reading, Dr Franca Pellegrini, a close friend of the Association, recently resident in Oxford, suggests Paolo Cognetti’s Le Otto Montagne, winner of the Strega Prize. Sembra un uomo d’altri tempi Paolo Cognetti, nella foto in bianco e nero che lo ritrae alla consegna del Premio Strega: barba e capelli fulvi, un po’ incolti, e quel fiocco da pittore annodato alla bohémienne, sotto la lavagna dove ancora in modo antico si contano i voti del Premio. Nato a Milano nel 1978, Paolo Cognetti come scrittore ha cominciato a pubblicare Paolo Cognetti con la casa editrice minimum fax nel 2004 con Manuale per ragazze di successo, ma Il luogo della manifestazione è la Nel tempo, l’edificio ha cambiato questo riconoscimento del romanzo Le otto splendida Villa Giulia a Roma. Appena fuori proprietari e uso fino al 1870, quando montagne, edito per Einaudi nel 2016, lo dalle mure aureliane, facile da raggiungere divenne patrimonio del Regno d’Italia e porta alla ribalta del grande pubblico e alla dalla vicina Piazza del Popolo, Villa Giulia fu destinato ad area museale. Oggi la Villa piena legittimazione della critica. Cognetti, rimane appartata in una sorta di valletta. Fu ospita il Museo nazionale etrusco fondato infatti, ha vinto la settantunesima edizione fatta costruire da papa Giulio III, al secolo nel 1889 e, oltre a numerosi reperti di grande del Premio Strega nel magnifico scenario di Vincenzo Ciocchi del Monte, nel XVI secolo, interesse archeologico, vi si può ammirare il Villa Giulia a Roma. e da lui prende il nome. Sembra essere stato famoso Sarcofago degli sposi. Il Premio prende avvio nel 1947 da Giorgio Vasari il primo a progettarla, ma la un’iniziativa di Maria e Goffredo Bellonci, realizzazione fu opera di numerosi artisti patrocinato da Guido Alberti, produttore dell’epoca. del Liquore Strega, da cui il nome. Siamo Il set del Premio Strega è il Ninfeo della nell’immediato dopoguerra, e dopo Villa, posizionato nella parte posteriore, vent’anni di fascismo l’Italia della cultura fra dove si può ammirare la grande loggia mille incertezze s’interroga sul futuro di un dell’Ammanati, con scale laterali che Paese devastato dalla guerra e dalle divisioni. conducono alla parte sottostante fra statue L’istituzione del Premio letterario Strega e decorazioni che contornano la fontana è un modo per riprendere il confronto fra centrale, opera di Vasari e Ammanati. scrittori, per farsi conoscere e riconoscere. Vince la prima edizione, nel 1947, con Tempo di uccidere. Nomi illustri The Nymphaeum della letteratura italiana contemporanea of Villa Giulia hanno in seguito ricevuto il Premio: da nel 1957 con L’isola di Arturo al Gattopardo di Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa nel 1959 a con La chiave a stella nel 1979 e con ©Frank Axelsson Il nome della rosa nel 1981, solo per citarne alcuni. E il Premio Strega è ancora oggi il più Etruscan, Sarcophagus importante riconoscimento in Italia per uno of the Spouses scrittore di narrativa.

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chiamate natura. È così astratta nella vostra testa che è astratto pure il nome. Noi qui diciamo bosco, pascolo, torrente, roccia, cose che uno può indicare con il dito.” (p. 140) Cognetti pennella con tratti leggeri ma intensi il Monte Rosa, il Grenon, le Tre Cime di Lavaredo nella loro spettacolarità, sempre riportandole attraverso la sua esperienza diretta, guardandole da fuori e da dentro: i paurosi crepacci, le suggestive lingue di ghiaccio, le dure asperità e le dolci vallate verdeggianti. Il ritorno alla vita primitiva dell’omo servadzo è parte della vita di Pietro, ma soprattutto di Bruno, che tenta di staccarsi dal proprio destino per intraprendere un’altra vita con una famiglia e un piccolo allevamento, ma Bruno fallisce Grana, Italy nel suo progetto ed è costretto a riprendere ©Andrea Marchisio ©Andrea in solitaria la via della montagna. Pietro In questo scenario, Le otto montagne invece va e viene, viaggia alla ricerca di di Paolo Cognetti è risultato vincitore Monte Rosa sé fino al Nepal e insegue le risposte alle dell’edizione 2017. Il romanzo, che ha domande irrisolte della vita, per poi tornare come baricentro la montagna, racconta la sempre sui propri passi. La quête accomuna vita di Pietro e della sua famiglia divisa fra i due ragazzi, divenuti uomini, che tentano la grande città, Milano, e l’esperienza della di trovare risposta alle contraddizioni montagna. Un romanzo di formazione, dell’esistenza nella solitudine della natura. si potrebbe definire, che tocca corde Lo stile del romanzo sembra muovere molto attuali e lo fa in un modo leggero, in principio dalla forma diaristica con la profondo, e allo stesso tempo inconsueto. ©Maxinmilan narrazione della vita di Pietro, ma in realtà Centro fisico e ideale del romanzo èla è un resoconto intimo, con frequenti salti località di Grana, provincia di Asti, in sue contraddizioni paesaggistiche e umane. temporali, e si configura come il racconto di Piemonte, piccolo borgo dimenticato dalla Sembra, in quel paesino di Grana fra i monti un’anima in fuga dalla civiltà e in cerca di un civiltà, rimasto a lungo incontaminato, e al del Piemonte, di tornare indietro nel tempo: ritorno alle origini per una ricomposizione. di fuori del circuito turistico. un mondo fermo nella sua meravigliosa Questa scelta narrativa rende la lettura a La storia prende avvio alla fine degli cornice, fra una vaga speranza di progresso tratti distesa, a tratti ripida come una parete anni Settanta per chiudersi ai giorni nostri, e una ferma volontà di conservare un alpina, e dimostra la capacità dell’autore di nel 2014. Pietro è un bambino che trascorre mondo incontaminato. condurre il lettore sui sentieri alpini, senza le vacanze estive in una remota casetta Il titolo è dettato dall’incontro che Pietro mai eccedere nella misura delle descrizioni insieme alla madre e al padre, amanti fa durante il suo viaggio in Nepal, alla ricerca paesaggistiche, rendendo l’andamento ora della montagna. Il dramma familiare che delle grandi montagne, con un vecchio del morbido e accogliente, ora drammatico e i genitori nascondono al ragazzo saranno luogo che gli spiega come è fatto il mondo terribile. Si segue il protagonista nel suo resi noti solo alla fine del libro. Il rapporto secondo la loro visione: “Noi diciamo che percorso di formazione e se ne percepisce irrisolto padre-figlio percorre l’intera storia al centro del mondo c’è un monte altissimo, la veridicità del tratto. La lingua usata e scandisce i tempi del racconto. L’atmosfera il Sumeru. Intorno al Sumeru ci sono otto rispecchia l’andamento del contenuto, descritta è avvolgente, si seguono la crescita montagne e otto mari. Questo è il mondo per un italiano di oggi, senza strappi con la e le scoperte del ragazzo che si confronta noi.” (p. 138) tradizione e senza concessioni, se non per con una realtà umana e paesaggistica Così anche per il protagonista il centro qualche intarsio lessicale, al dialetto. nuova rispetto alla sua esperienza cittadina. del mondo diviene la montagna e la casa, È dunque un romanzo Le otto montagne L’attrazione per quel tipo di vita è accresciuta sarebbe meglio dire la barma, che insieme che mette al centro della narrazione il dall’incontro con Bruno, un giovane che vive all’amico Bruno decide di costruire ai rapporto con se stessi e con gli altri nella tutto l’anno in quei luoghi e che scambia la confini di una terra che inizia e finisce nelle meditazione del silenzio dei monti, ancora sua esperienza con quella cittadina di Pietro: spettacolari visioni dei paesaggi montani. incontaminati, ed ha il merito di rivelare complementarietà che accompagnerà i due Nel romanzo la natura si concretizza, non è un aspetto centrale nella cultura italiana: amici per tutto il loro percorso di vita. Nella mera cornice alla vita dei protagonisti, ma quello della montagna, attraverso il legame rievocazione del tempo e dei luoghi, sullo è protagonista essa stessa. Diviene parte indissolubile uomo-natura, che non sempre sfondo della vicenda sta l’Italia con il suo intima e allo stesso tempo reale dell’esistenza, oggi siamo abituati a considerare parte viva sviluppo a diverse velocità, ritratta in tutte le come afferma Bruno: “Siete voi di città che la della nostra esistenza.

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CLASSIFIEDS

EXPERIENCE SICILY: STAY – COOK – CREATE AT A CHARMING BOUTIQUE B&B IN TAORMINA

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Two-bedroom furnished apartment Available throughout the year: weekend (sleeps five) with own patio, garden and (from £50), weekly (from £140) or The natural beauty of the medieval town of Taormina is hard to dispute. The view garage. Fully equipped modern kitchen. monthly (from £400). of the sea and Mount Etna from its jagged cactus-covered cliffs is as close to One of two dwellings in a four-hectare perfection as a panorama can get, particularly on clear days when the snow-capped rural property in Bracciano Regional For further information and photos, volcano’s white puffs of smoke rise against the cobalt blue sky. Villa Britannia is Park, yet close (50 km) to Rome. Ideal please go to: www.casadellaluna.com a centrally-located small and exclusive boutique B&B, ideal for those with a love for relaxation, sports and visits to Lake of food and wine, as well as those wishing to discover the multifarious cultural Bracciano, or the many delightful nearby heritage of Taormina and Sicily more widely. Enjoy local cooking classes with places of interest: Tarquinia, Bracciano, Louisa, Etna wine tasting and traditional Sicilian bread making and much more. Viterbo, Trevignano, Terme di Stigliano, For further details and special events, see: www.villabritannia.com Sutri and, of course, Rome itself.

VENETIAN CHARMS IN DORSODURO Family apartment, Dorsoduro. Sleeps up to eight – three doubles, two singles, two bathrooms, and terrace for meals. To rent for one week minimum or more. Contact Margaret Pianta on 01494 873975 or via email: [email protected]

THE ITALIAN RIVIERA AND ALASSIO’S ELEGANT TERRACED HOUSE AVAILABLE FASCINATING PAST: FLAT TO RENT IN HIP AND CENTRAL JERICHO

Four-bedroom, one-bathroom flat, within a family- Quiet, elegant Victorian terraced owned villa in Alassio, zona Paradiso, ten minutes’ house in hip, central Jericho, close to walk from the beach and the centre of town. Alassio University departments and Colleges. hosts an English library with over 20,000 volumes, Two double bedrooms (one en-suite), a legacy from the past, and the Hanbury Tennis two shower/wcs, small garden, efficient Club, a real gem, which contains some legacy central heating, fireplace. Five to 15 memorabilia, ideal for tennis fans and anyone minutes to transport hubs, shops, interested in playing tennis whilst on holiday. cinemas, Thames, lovely walks, etc., free For further information and availability, WIFI. No parking. £2,500pcm + utilities contact Rupert Parmenter 00 39 331 6139126 (negotiable). Please contact or email [email protected] [email protected]

13 TOIA MAGAZINE # 80

PIUMA POETRY MATTERS 98 minutes Italian with Italian subtitles

After making a name for himself with The First on the List – depicting two high-school students’ incredible escape in the 1970s owing to an imminent and unlikely coup Eugenio Montale was an Italian poet, d’état – and after portraying the bittersweet prose writer, editor and translator, and trials and tribulations of a group of university recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize for students in Fino a qui tutto bene, Roan Literature. He is widely considered to Johnson tells a tale about youngsters in be the greatest Italian lyric poet since Piuma (lit. “Feather”). Giacomo Leopardi. The London-born director, who grew up in Pisa, makes use of the ironic and laid- back undertones of comedy, pitting two Meriggiare pallido e assorto generations against each other: on one hand, presso un rovente muro d’orto, children on the verge of the rite of passage ascoltare tra i pruni e gli sterpi from carefree adolescence to the complexity schiocchi di merli, frusci di serpi. of the adult world; and on the other, parents struggling with the nigh-on impossible task Nelle crepe dei suolo o su la veccia of understanding and providing guidance. spiar le file di rosse formiche Indeed, Piuma tells the story of Ferro ch’ora si rompono ed ora s’intrecciano (Luigi Fedele) and Cate (Blu Yoshimi), a sommo di minuscole biche. two adolescents trying to get to grips with an unplanned pregnancy, their families Osservare tra frondi il palpitare (rebellious Ferro’s hospitable, “normal” lontano di scaglie di mare family, and level-headed Cate’s unhinged, mentre si levano tremuli scricchi atypical one), exams at school, friends and a di cicale dai calvi picchi. general lack of jobs. The two lead characters i Film screening at Mordan Hall, are about to go through the most exciting St Hugh’s College, St Margaret’s Road, E andando nel sole che abbaglia and complicated nine months of their lives, Oxford, Friday, 10 November, sentire con triste meraviglia all the while trying to hold on to their purity 7.30 p.m. In Italian accompanied by com’è tutta la vita e il suo travaglio and their poetic point of view that makes Italian subtitles. All welcome. in questo seguitare una muraglia them so special. £2 donation suggested. che ha in cima cocci aguzzi di bottiglia.

For further information go to www.toia.co.uk

14 TOIA MAGAZINE # 80

EVENT: CHRISTMAS PARTY & AGM

Come to celebrate the onset of the festive season in like-minded company. The AGM will afford us the chance to reflect back, Janus-like, on last year’s programme and to look forward to the coming year. It is an opportunity to meet up informally with other members and to put forward ideas for the future of the Association and our activities. Suggestions for speakers and activities are invited to keep the programme fresh, dynamic and relevant. In addition, all members are welcome to propose i Christmas Party and AGM, Committee members or to put themselves St Margaret’s Institute, forward. Proceedings are short and to mark 30 Polstead Road, Oxford, on Tuesday, the approach of the festivities panettone 5 December, 2017, 7.45 for 8.00 p.m. and spumante will be served. Members only.

15 THE OXFORD WHO WE ARE: ITALIAN CHAIR: Professor Martin McLaughlin, Magdalen College, ASSOCIATION Oxford OX1 4AU Email: [email protected]

TOIA is an Oxford-based cultural association for those VICE-CHAIR: Dott.ssa. Luciana John, interested in any aspect of Italy and its culture in the 6 Chalfont Road, Oxford OX2 6TH Email: [email protected] broadest sense: language, art, travel, politics, literature, food and wine, or other. No knowledge of Italian is SECRETARY: Spencer Gray, required to enjoy its diverse programme of events. The Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, annual subscription is £15 renewable each November Oxford, OX2 6DP (£23 for couples, £6 for students under 30, and £6 for Email: [email protected] members living more than 40 miles from Oxford). Further TREASURER & CURATOR OF THE ROWE TRUST: information, with an application form, is available on Dott.ssa. Luciana John, from the Membership Secretary or downloadable from 6 Chalfont Road, Oxford OX2 6TH our website: www.toia.co.uk. The TOIA Magazine is sent to Email: [email protected] members three times a year. MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY: Dott. Dante Ceruolo, University of Oxford Language Centre, 12 Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HT Email: [email protected] We are pleased to announce that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and CNH Industrial have WEBSITE CONTACT: http://toia.co.uk/contact/ generously agreed to sponsor your new-look TOIA Magazine. MAGAZINE CONTACT: [email protected]

TOIA Events: at a glance

16 October Lecture, Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting, Professor Martin Kemp, Main Conference Room, Oxford University Press, 6.30 p.m.

26 October Lecture, How human was Mussolini?, Professor Richard Bosworth, Mordan Hall, St. Hugh’s College, 7.30 for 8.00 p.m.

30 October Lecture, The Future of British-Italian Relations, HMA Jill Morris, British Ambassador to the Republic of Italy, Mordan Hall, St. Hugh’s College, 7.30 for 8.00 p.m.

10 November Film, Piuma, in Italian (with Italian subtitles), Mordan Hall, St Hugh’s College, 7.30 p.m

21 November The Dorothy Rowe Memorial Lecture, Giambattista Vico and the History of Religions, Professor Girolamo Imbruglia, The Grove Lecture Theatre, Magdalen College, 5.00 p.m.

5 December Annual General Meeting and Christmas Party, St. Margaret’s Institute, Polstead Road, Oxford, 7.45 p.m. TOIA members only.

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