The Oxford Italian Association

TRINITY, 2018 TOIA MAGAZINE # 82

THE OXFORD ITALIAN ASSOCIATION

PADUA MEETS OXFORD: A CELEBRATION OF INTERCONNECTION

here are many facets to rebirth and renewal in the springtime and this is one of them: a collaborative Tproject, building on pre-existing and vibrant interconnections. On the 8th and 9th of May, a delegation from the Università degli Studi di Padova and the City Council of Padua will meet with their counterparts in Oxford as part of an initiative that will build greater links and a possible twinning between the two Universities and the two cities; a project that could be the first of its kind ©Governo Italiano in Britain. The visit will be marked, too, by the Clara Florio Cooper Memorial Lecture delivered by Emeritus Professor of Italian, Diego Zancani, in part highlighting the links between Britain and Italy. Subsequently, a European flag-raising ceremony will unfold at Carfax Tower to coincide with Europe Day (9th May, 11.00 a.m., Carfax). © Didier Descouens Whatever one’s views are about Brexit, maintaining, renewing and growing burgeoning relationships with our Prato della Valle neighbours is important. Forging the initial bonds some time ago, Professor Timothy Wilson and there followed a fallow period. Redoubtably, between the two Universities. The breadth Professor Emanuela Tandello created a together with the engagement of Padua- and vision of this relationship was further tie between the Sub-Faculty of Italian at based Alessandra Petrina (a Renaissance extended by Tim Wilson - former keeper Oxford and italianistica at the University English specialist and a former Visiting of Western Art at the Ashmolean Museum of Padua and, successively, the Polo Fellow of All Souls College) and Professor and specialist on ceramics - to involve the Museale of the Veneto. These incipient Chris Wickham, the group organised interaction of ‘town and gown’, universities initiatives garnered some success, but academic exchanges in the Humanities always being a part of a city’s activities.

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The relationship coalesced with a meeting generously hosted by the Università degli Studi di Padova, in November 2017, involving the Universities of Padua and Oxford, together with the representatives of local government of the two cities. Rosario Rizzuto, the Rector of the University of Padua, opened the meeting, greeting the Oxford delegation, led by Anne Trefethen, Pro-Vice Chancellor. The gathering encompassed several panels organised by theme and specific areas of common interest and research going far beyond the Humanities: Oxford faculty members met their Padua counterparts in order to discuss shared interests, research proposals, and explore the possibility of furthering academic exchange and cooperation. Additionally, the attendance of the curators of the museums, libraries, and historic botanic gardens in the respective cities reinforced associations. This coincided with the ceremony for the conferral of an Honorary Degree in Historical Sciences on Professor Chris Wickham at Palazzo Bo, in the majestic Aula Magna. An Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Chichele Professor in Medieval History, Professor Wickham has worked tirelessly to promote academic exchanges between Oxford University and the University of Padua and is a specialist on Medieval Italian history. Building on these foundations, Oxford

City Council and the University of Oxford © Ivanfurlanis will host a delegation welcoming colleagues from Padua University and the Sindaco of Padua, the dynamic Sergio Giordani, Specola di Padova together with the vice Sindaco Arturo Lorenzoni, on 8th and 9th May to further this initiative. The possible civic twinning will involve forging projects around health,

the young, sport, environmental initiatives © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro and green energy, industry, commerce, and tourism. Invited, too, by Oxford City Council on Europe day will be a delegation from Wroclaw in Poland. As for the two Universities, there is an embedded history and current active collaboration across the four divisions. Botanic Gardens Capella degli Scrovegni Consider that many members of the 16th century intelligentsia went to Padua to The link between the Universities includes staff exchanges, summer schools, book study, particularly in the fields of Law and Medicine, Physical Sciences, Astrophysics, history and manuscript conservation) are Medicine, such as Thomas Linacre who Social Sciences, Archaeology, History, as infinite as Galileo’s heliocentric universe took a degree in Medicine with distinction Modern Languages and Linguistics. … and one that we now know extends at Padua before returning to Oxford. Future possibilities (round-table events, infinitely beyond.

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THE CLARA FLORIO COOPER MEMORIAL LECTURE, 2018 BRITALIAN: ITALIAN RENAISSANCE FOOD, AND ITS REPRESENTATION IN BRITAIN AND IN ITALY

A LECTURE BY EMERITUS PROFESSOR DIEGO ZANCANI

In a recent book on food and film Feasting( of their visits to Italian cities. Some of them our Eyes, by Linda Linderfelt and Fabio were surprised that, in Italy, frogs and Parasecoli, 2017) the authors point out snails were considered delicacies, and frogs that “Food has colonised the Internet were more widespread in Northern Italy through a plethora of specialised websites, than in France. The abundance of fruit and videos, blogs, photos and social media”. vegetables, and of many other provisions We are all aware of this, and yet there are was regularly recorded, as well as the many aspects of food history which need to occasional inadequate treatment in some be clarified and explained. After all, food roadside inn. In order to prepare for their is a topic we cannot avoid if we want to journeys, travellers had access to bilingual survive. manuals of conversation published in So, what was the situation like in Early London. Some of the dialogues can give us Modern Times? Or, as it used to be called, an insight into the interests of Renaissance at the time of the Renaissance? travellers. It is well known that when Elizabeth Were Italian recipe books known I became the Queen of England, Italian in England? At least one was certainly The Well Stocked Kitchen was quite fashionable as a language in translated, with some censure on the London. The Queen was said to be able amount of garlic recommended in the Joining the evening will be a to converse in Italian with the Venetian Italian original. delegation from the University of Padua ambassadors, and she granted a number Some Italian expats, like Giacomo and the Comune, celebrating a unique of gentlemen licenses to travel on the Castelvetro (1546–1616), a tutor in Italian collaboration and possible twinning of continent. Specialised books on Italian at Cambridge, decided to intervene in the cities and universities. history, language, and diet started to debate about food by dedicating a book to Diego Zancani is Emeritus Professor appear. A great promoter of Italian the well-known socialite, Lucy, Countess of Italian, University of Oxford, Emeritus vocabulary, a friend of Shakespeare, and of Bedford, in an attempt to encourage the Fellow, Balliol College. He was a lecturer the translator of Montaigne’s works, John British public to eat more vegetables and in Italian at the universities of Reading, Florio (1553–1625) included numerous fruit, and illustrate the varieties that existed Liverpool, and Kent at Canterbury, Italian food terms in his highly successful in Italy and in Britain. before being appointed a tutor and Italian-English dictionaries, such as Turning to Italian sources themselves, Fellow of Balliol College Oxford in 1994. lasagne, pappardelle, ravioli, tagliarelli I shall introduce the works of a fascinating He was a Visiting Professor in various or tagliatelli and many others, including poet, singer, composer, playwright and Italian Universities and twice at Harvard pizza. Common names, perhaps, but not improviser who extolled the virtues of the University. He has written extensively on always the same things, however, as we inhabitants of Bologna, the city that in the Italian Renaissance literature, History of know them today. Even now we sometimes Middle Ages had acquired the sobriquet of la the Language, and History of Food. have many different names for very similar grassa because of its love for all sorts of food dishes. The only way to find out what they and sausages. The author’s name is Giulio looked like, or maybe even tasted like, is Cesare Croce (1550–1609), or Giulio Cesare to browse through recipe books, literary dalla Lira, because of one of his favourite i The Clara Florio Cooper Memorial works and diaries. instruments, the lira da braccio. Some of Lecture, Main Hall, Taylor Institution, Fortunately, some wealthy British who his comical pieces are still entertaining, St. Giles, Oxford travelled to the continent at the end of the especially when he talks about some of his 5.00 p.m. on Tuesday, 8th May, 2018. sixteenth century and in the early part of the favourite delicacies, for which recipes will Admission is free. All welcome. seventeenth have left us detailed accounts be provided. Drinks reception follows lecture.

For further information go to toia.co.uk

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A CHILL IN THE AIR

IRIS ORIGO’S GRANDDAUGHTER, KATIA LYSY, AND LUCY HUGHES-HALLETT IN CONVERSATION

Lucy Hughes-Hallett and Katia Lysy, Iris Origo’s granddaughter, meet to discuss A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary 1939–1940, a newly discovered diary of the period preceding Origo’s much beloved War in Val d’Orcia. War in Italy in 1939 was by no means necessary, or even beneficial to the country. But in June 1940, Mussolini finally declared war on Britain and France. The awful inevitability with which Italy stumbled its way into a war for which it was ill prepared and largely unenthusiastic is documented here with grace and clarity by one of the twentieth century’s great diarists. This diary, which has never been published and was recently found in Origo’s archives, is the sad and gripping account of the grim absurdities that Italy and the world underwent as war became increasingly unavoidable. Iris Origo, British-born and living in Italy, was ideally placed to record the events: extremely engaged with the world around her, connected to people from all areas of society (from the peasants on her estate to the US ambassador to Italy), she writes of the turmoil, the danger, and the dreadful bleakness of Italy in 1939-1940, as war went from a possibility to a dreadful reality. A Chill in the Air recounts, with the devastating clarity typical of Iris Origo, the beginning of a war whose catastrophic effects are documented in the War in Val d’Orcia. Iris Origo (1902-1988) was a British- born biographer and writer. She lived in Italy and devoted much of her life to the improvement of the Tuscan estate at La Foce, which she purchased with her husband in the 1920s. During WWII, she sheltered refugee children and assisted many escaped Allied prisoners of war in defiance of Italy’s fascist regime and Nazi occupation forces. Pushkin Press also publishes her bestselling war diaries, War in Val d'Orcia, her memoir, Images and Shadows, as well as two of her biographies, A Study in Solitude: The Life of Leopardi – Poet, Romantic, Radical and The Last Attachment: The Story of Byron and Teresa Guiccioli.

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Antony Beevor, author of Ardennes 1944 (Penguin) writes:

As Lucy Hughes-Hallett points out in her excellent introduction to this volume, Iris Origo, with typical modesty, referred in her memoirs to her “little war diary” in no more than a passing subordinate clause. In fact, War in the Val d’Orcia, first published in 1947, was immediately hailed as one of the great diaries of the 20th century. It described the chaos and suffering of Italian civilians caught between the Allies and the Germans in 1943 and 1944. The Anglo-American Marchesa Origo, owner of 7,000 acres and 25 farms southeast of Siena, sheltered and fed anti-fascist partisans and escaped British prisoners-of- war, as well as refugees from allied bombing. Caroline Moorehead, in her biography of Origo, records that while she helped hide these fugitives at great risk, her husband Antonio, who had forsworn his earlier support for Mussolini, would be “tying up a German patrol in conversation at the front of the house”. Then, when the fighting drew near and the Germans forced them to abandon everything, the couple shepherded a crowd of some 60 women with babies, children and the elderly through artillery fire to safety at Montepulciano. The “chill in the air” of the title refers both to Mussolini’s dictum that “perpetual peace would be a catastrophe for human civilisation”, and the danger of an alliance with Nazi Germany. The Tuscan contadini, whose parents’ lives had been squandered Katia Lysy in 1917 on the allied side during the terrible fighting in the Dolomites, had no enthusiasm Katia Lysy was born in Rome. She has for the new “axis” with the Nazis. Even as war worked in publishing and as a journalist fever mounted after the German occupation and translator. She now lives between of Prague and threats to Poland, there was Rome and southern Tuscany, where she an air of disbelief that it could be in anyone’s assists her mother Benedetta, daughter of interests to become embroiled in a war of the writer Iris Origo, in the management Hitler’s making. One young woman, who's and development of the family estate of expecting her first baby, prays daily that it La Foce. will be a girl. ‘What’s the use of having boys if Lucy Hughes-Hallett is the author they’ll take them away and kill them?’ of The Pike, a biography of Gabriele Italy then invaded Albania. The fascist d’Annunzio, which won the Samuel press claimed that its army was saving the Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, the Costa country from brigands. One and a half Biography Award, the Duff Cooper Prize Lucy Hughes-Hallett million men were called up, a disaster in a and the Paddy Power Political Biography primarily agricultural country: even then it of the Year Award. Her other books respected critic who has reviewed for major was far short of the “eight million” bayonets are Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and national newspapers, and is a fellow of the of Mussolini’s ludicrous boast, which Distortions and Heroes: Saviours, Traitors Royal Society of Literature. Her latest novel prompted jests about the lack of rifles to put and Supermen. Hughes-Hallett is also a is Peculiar Ground. She lives in London. them on.

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Origo analyses the propaganda lies with the piercing intelligence that so impressed Frances Partridge and Virginia Woolf. “It is now clear what form propaganda, in case of war, will take,” she writes. Mussolini will accuse the “haves” of the “democratic countries” of blocking the economic expansion of the “have-nots” by not sharing colonies and resources. And Germany’s behaviour would be justified on the grounds that by offering a guarantee to Poland, the British and the French were guilty of attempting to “encircle” Germany. The fake news issued by the regime was so implausible that many were tempted to dismiss all news, however accurate, as no better. “The radio has made fools of us all,” a man says to her. Origo manages to sum up the corruption in all dictatorships with a simple anecdote. “A little boy of 10, the son of one of my friends, was highly Caroline Moorehead praised for his school essay, which was full of the most orthodox fascist sentiments. When he brought home a rough copy, his mother asked him: ‘Do you really believe all this, Luigino?’ ‘Oh no, mother, of course not! But it is the only way to get good marks.’” War fever abated in the late spring of 1939, when Mussolini claimed that only Britain and France wanted to fight. The dictatorships simply desired “peace and justice”. Despite the wild rumours and the endless propaganda, Origo clearly saw the direction of events. Unfortunately, all too many Italians believed Mussolini would avoid an entanglement with Hitler. “Don’t you worry, nothing’s going to happen,” Origo’s hairdresser says when he spots her reading the newspaper. “You’ll see, the Duce will stop the war at the last moment,” a taxi © Estate of Iris Origo driver tells her. In the countryside, the contadini are under no illusion. “One old man, whose four sons work on the farm, put a shaking hand on my arm and looked Iris Origo up into my face. ‘If they all four go, I might as well throw myself into that ditch. Who will work the farm? What shall we give the In June 1940, he became the jackal to children to eat?’” Hitler’s lion, declaring war on Britain and On 1 September, Hitler invaded France just as the victorious Germans i Mordan Hall, St Hugh’s College, Poland, claiming that the fault lay with the were poised to enter Paris. All Italians St Margaret’s Road, Oxford, Poles for having mobilised when German were summoned to the wireless to listen to 7.30 p.m. drinks reception, armies massed on her borders. “Total his bombastic speech. The contadini can 8.00 p.m. conversation, on Thursday, silence from Rome,” Origo notes. But do little but shrug and turn away. Their 17th May 2018. Entry: Members £2, those who admired Mussolini for keeping “rough, awkward country boys dressed up non-members £5, students under 30 Italy out of the war would be disabused. in ill-fitting uniforms” will pay the price. free of charge.

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HAVE WE GOT MACHIAVELLI ALL WRONG?

A LECTURE BY ERICA BENNER

Erica Benner

What if the Italian civil servant whose name became shorthand for devious politics was trying to warn us about the despots, not advise them? If you’re a political outsider who wants to move fast to the top job in a democracy, how to do it? You could start by dipping into a book written 500 years ago by an out- of-pocket Italian civil servant. The quickest way, it says, is to have fortune on your side from the outset, with plenty of inherited money and a leg up through family connections. If lying and breaking your oaths help you crush the opposition, so be it. Make the people your best friend. Promise Niccolò Machiavelli to protect their interests against predatory elites and foreigners. Fan partisan hatreds so that you alone seem to rise above them, “cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous, But what if we’re overlooking saviour of the fatherland. especially in politics”. Along with our daily Machiavelli’s less obvious messages, his The book is The Prince (Il Principe), news, popular culture has brought legions deeper insights into politics? Until about a its author Niccolò Machiavelli. Minus of Machiavellian figures into our homes and decade ago, it never occurred to me to ask television and Twitter, it seems the made them both human and entertaining: this question. It was part of my job to teach techniques of ambitious “new princes”, as he Tony Soprano, Frank and Claire Underwood Plato-to-Nato courses in the history of ideas, calls them, haven’t changed a bit. But why in House of Cards, Lord Petyr Baelish from and Machiavelli came up early in the year, did Machiavelli write a whole book about Game of Thrones. These Machiavellians are squeezed between Augustine and Hobbes. them, peppering it with men who soared scoundrels, but subtle ones. In watching Like thousands of overworked lecturers, I to power by greasing palms and exploiting their manoeuvres on screen we, like their had my shortcuts. Picking up The Prince or weaknesses: Julius Caesar, Pope Alexander victims, can’t help being a little seduced Discourses, I’d highlight all the attention- VI, Cesare Borgia? by their warped ingenuity. So it no longer grabbing Machiavellian phrases and skim Most people today assume that shocks us to think that a highly intelligent the rest. Academic summaries told me that Machiavelli didn’t just describe their man who lived five centuries ago, in times Machiavelli was devoted to the salvation of methods, he recommended them – that we imagine were far crueller than ours, his native city, Florence, and his country, he himself is the original Machiavellian, spent night after night at his desk in the Italy, at a time when both were ravaged the first honest teacher of dishonest Tuscan countryside, his wife and children by wars. Yes, he made sinister excuses for politics. According to the Oxford English sleeping nearby, drafting the rulebook for violence and hypocrisy. But his reasons Dictionary, the adjective has come to mean today’s cynical populists and authoritarians. were patriotic, well-meaning, human.

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Yet the more I read, the more I questioned this story. I started noticing that Machiavelli’s writings speak in different voices at different times. At one moment he seems to applaud men who break their oaths at will, caring little for just dealings. But he also says – in a passage most scholars pass over – that “victories are never secure without some respect, especially for justice”. For every cynical Machiavellian precept, I found two or three others that clashed with it. I began to doubt that Machiavelli believed his own advice. These doubts grew as I delved into his life and times, trying to understand what made him say what he did. The usual story is that he wrote The Prince as a job application, when he was

seeking work as an adviser to Florence’s © Gage Skidmore first family, the super-wealthy Medici. But as a leading civil servant in charge of foreign affairs and defence, Machiavelli had been Donald Trump one of the republic’s stoutest defenders. Just a year before he finished the first draft of his “little book”, the Medici swept into lived his life and how that life shaped his So what can citizens do to preserve Florence in a foreign-backed coup after thoughts, it looks as if we’ve got Machiavelli their freedoms? For one thing, they can spending years in exile. They were deeply all wrong. train themselves to see through the various suspicious of his loyalties, dismissed him And it’s time we got him right, because ruses in the would-be tyrant’s handbook. from his posts, then had him imprisoned no contemporary writer is a better guide to Machiavelli’s The Prince describes most of and tortured under suspicion of plotting understanding and confronting our own them, in ways that mimic their disorienting against them. political world. Both as secretary to the ambiguity. On the day Donald Trump If Machiavelli did send the Medici The republic and through his writings – which signed his executive order on immigration Prince, which seems unlikely, he could not include reams of poetry, risqué comedies from seven countries, for instance, these have expected them to take its “advice” – and a quietly tragic history of Florence – comments were painfully apt: to bribe, swindle, and assassinate one’s he spent his life fighting to defend his city’s Nothing makes a new prince so esteemed way to power – as gifts of friendly wisdom. republican government against threats as to carry on great enterprises and give Nor would it have helped his cause that from within and without. It was a hard rare examples of himself. In our times we he addresses the Medici as “princes” fight, with battles on many fronts. It took have Ferdinand of Aragon. If you consider in his dedication, and insists on their Machiavelli on a long journey across France his actions, you will find them great and remoteness from the people. Just like with King Louis XII, and to the court some of them extraordinary. He kept the modern dictators, the Medici were keen of Cesare Borgia, where he spent nerve- minds of the barons of Castile preoccupied to keep up the fiction that they were mere racking months trying to dissuade the with war; so they did not perceive that “first citizens” in Florence’s republic, not violent youth from attacking Florence. he was acquiring reputation and power monarchs or tyrants. Calling them princes His city’s tempestuous history taught over them. Besides this, to undertake was an audacious piece of cheek. No Machiavelli a lesson he tries to convey greater enterprises, always making use wonder readers of The Prince in the early to future readers: that no one man can of religion, he turned to an act of pious modern era – philosophers such as Francis overpower a free people unless they let him. cruelty, expelling the Marranos [forcibly Bacon, Spinoza and Rousseau – had no “Men are so simple,” he tells us, “so obedient converted Muslims and Jews] and purging doubt the book was a cunning exposé of to present necessities, that he who deceives them from his kingdom; nor could there be princely snares, a self-defence manual will always find someone who will let himself a more wretched example than this. And for citizens. “The book of republicans,” be deceived.” To each of us, he says: don’t so he has always done and ordered great Rousseau dubbed it. become that someone. Citizens need to things, which have always kept the minds Don’t judge by reputation or realise that by trusting leaders too much and of his subjects in suspense and admiration appearances. “Take nothing on authority.” themselves too little, they create their own and occupied with their outcome. And his These are among Machiavelli’s less-known political nightmares. “I’d like to teach them actions have followed one upon another so maxims, and we should apply them to his the way to hell,” he told a friend toward the that men never have time to work steadily own words. If we look again at how he end of his life, “so they can steer clear of it.” against him.

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When we know that these words are Machiavelli’s, we tend to let his reputation colour how we read them. But if an anonymous poster were to put up this passage online, how would you take it: as lavish praise for a great leader’s statesmanship, or deadpan sendup of his grandiosity and cheap tricks? You might suspect that it’s all a braintease, a test of whether you can smell trouble behind big talk and manic hyperactivity. And you might wonder: can distraction tactics like these ever bring states lasting security? Machiavelli’s answer is, no, they can’t. True political success needs completely different methods: low-key diplomacy, long-range solutions to complicated problems. Alongside his lessons for citizens, he also has a message for new populist princes. You might, he tells them, rise with ease to the top by using divide-and-rule tactics and other stock manipulations. People might believe your self-serving version of reality – the world of us-versus-a-thousand-predators – for a while. But in the daily grind of governing, harder realities bite. Then you’ll be tempted to show everyone who’s boss, and try to ascend from a civil order to an absolute one. But be warned: citizens who are used to being governed by laws and magistrates are not ready, in these emergencies, to obey a despot. And if you do steal their freedoms, they never forget them. “The memory of their old liberty cannot let them rest.” They’ll fight you down to the scorched and bloody earth. Oh, and don’t bother building walls to keep out foreigners. Poisonous inequalities, citizens who hate each other, government that lacks legitimacy: these are what make states vulnerable. Walls just advertise your failure to deal with them. Today, yet again, old and new democracies are fighting for their lives. Between his double-edged lines, Machiavelli makes it clear why law-governed popular government is always better than authoritarian rule: “A people who can do whatever it wants is unwise, but a prince who can do whatever he wants is crazy.” His life and words inspire us to become sharper but like some readers nearer to his own readers of political danger signs, and ruthless time - she sees Machiavelli as a lifelong warriors for our freedoms. republican who fought hard against i Mordan Hall, St Hugh’s College, Erica Benner is a writer and scholar tyranny and corruption. Since this made St Margaret’s Road, Oxford, who works on moral and political thought. him a troublemaker in the eyes of princes 7.30 p.m. drinks reception, 8.00 p.m. For the last decade or so she has and popes, he became an artist of cunning conversation, on Wednesday, worked on Machiavelli. Her latest book, dissimulation who doesn't always ‘say what 30th May 2018. Entry: Members £2, Be Like the Fox, is a biography of the I mean, or mean what I say’ (as he wrote to non-members £5, students under good man. Unlike most scholars today - a friend). 30 free of charge.

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LA MIA ESPERIENZA A POZZUOLI

BY ANNA ZAKONYI

Dorothy Rowe was the Founding Secretary of TOIA and died in 1996. She was created Cavaliere for her work to promote Italian culture. She was married to David Rowe, who gave generous funds to endow a memorial lecture in her honour. TOIA raised other funds with which the Dorothy Rowe Exchange Scholarship has been set up for 17-18 year olds studying Italian in Oxford schools or English in schools in Pozzuoli, Naples. The most recent recipient of the scholarship who visited Pozzuoli, Anna Zakonyi, relates her experiences in

Italian. Thank you for supporting this © Ra Boe initiative by being a TOIA member. Pozzuoli, Naples La mia esperienza a Pozzuoli è stata veramente indimenticabile. Le mie due settimane lì mi hanno insegnato molto sull'educazione italiana, e mi hanno dato una migliore comprensione della cultura, società, lingua e storia napoletana. Comunque, le cose più preziose che il mio periodo a Pozzuoli mi ha dato sono le amicizie che ho fatto, di cui farò tesoro per il resto della mia vita. Quando ero a Pozzuoli, sono andata alla scuola della mia partner ogni giorno della settimana. Ho provato molte materie, come la chimica e la filosofia, ma le mie materie preferite erano la storia, l’italiano e la matematica. Durante le lezioni di storia, ho guardato le interrogazioni delle mie compagne di classe. Queste erano molto interessanti per me, perché la ragazza o il ragazzo ha dovuto collegare molti diversi periodi di storia in un argomento; questo tipo di valutazione è molto diverso dagli © Erasmo Mazzella esami scritti che abbiamo in Inghilterra. Mi è piaciuto anche imparare del romanticismo durante le lezioni italiane, specificamente Pozzuoli seafront su Leopardi e Manzoni, due scrittori molto importanti. Nella matematica, ho imparato il tema dei limiti, che non avevo studiato una classe rimane nella stessa stanza per amichevole e inclusiva che mi ha fatto sentire mai in Inghilterra. Un’altra materia che mi tutta la giornata, e gli studenti non hanno veramente accettata nella classe! è piaciuta era la filosofia, che non studio qui. alcuna pausa durante la giornata scolastica. Avevo chiesto di vedere quanti più A parte queste cose specifiche, ho imparato Sebbene io preferisca complessivamente siti storici possibile, perché mi piace anche di più sull'educazione italiana in il sistema educativo britannico, preferisco molto la storia. Pertanto, quando ero in generale. Per esempio, ero sorpresa di come, in Italia, rimanere con la stessa Italia, la mia partner mi ha portato a molti scoprire che la classe non cambia mai classe per tutto il liceo. Ho visto quanto siti storici, come il castello di Baia e le durante i cinque anni di liceo. Per di più, fossero tutti vicini, e era questa atmosfera terme di Baia, Pompei, e l'Anfiteatro Flavio.

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nascoste e mettere insieme dalle rovine le ho sperimentato. Mi sono sentito sempre diverse aree utilizzate. La mia partner anche amata e inclusa, e non avrei potuto sperare mi ha portato alla costiera amalfitana, il in una famiglia migliore! Tra gli amici della parco virgiliano, e il Monte Nuovo. mia partner, ho fatto anche amici nuovi che Ho imparato di più della cultura e presto mi visiteranno quì in Inghilterra, e che della lingua napoletana mentre ero a vorrei rivedere l’anno prossimo a Pozzuoli. Pozzuoli. La mia famiglia e i miei amici Concludendo, vorrei dire che tutta tutti hanno voluto insegnarmi le frasi questa esperienza non sarebbe stata napoletane, e, quando me ne sono andata, possibile senza l’aiuto del Dorothy Rowe ho ricevuto molti messaggi che hanno Trust, e specificamente di Dr John e Signora detto ‘Annarè, stai ka!’. Era interessante da Stellardi. Questa è stata un’esperienza Macellum of Pozzuoli un punto di vista linguistico vedere come di vita, e non è possibile per me spiegare © Ferdinando Marfella © Ferdinando il dialetto differisce dalla lingua italiana. quanto ho amato il mio tempo in Italia. In questi posti, lei mi ha raccontato molti Benché la differenza tra napoletano e Ho conosciuto persone con cui resterò in fatti interessanti, e quindi ho potuto italiano significasse che qualche volta contatto per il resto della mia vita, e ho imparare di più della storia puteolana, era abbastanza difficile capire quello che fatto ricordi che ricorderò sempre. Ho pompeiana e napoletana. Il mio luogo la famiglia della mia partner mi diceva, imparato molto della storia e della cultura storico preferito erano le terme di Baia, adesso so molte frasi napoletane! Mi è italiana, e la mia fiducia e capacità di dove abbiamo potuto esplorare fessure piaciuta molto la cultura familiare che parlare in italiano sono aumentate tanto.

IN MEMORIAM: AN OBITUARY OF MICHAEL GELDER

BY ANNA DI STEFANO

It is with great sadness that we announce the many of the outstanding psychologists respecting the fair balance of interaction death of Professor Michael Graham Gelder. and psychiatrists who now lead the field, needed in a group. He was one of the leading psychiatrists of like Professor David Clark, Professor Anke And certainly, fairness played a great role his generation, a fellow of Merton College Ehlers, Professor Chris Fairburn, Professor in Michael’s family life, as the children recall Oxford, Professor and Chairman of the Keith Hawton, and last but not least the help and advice, he was always there, Department of Psychiatry, University of Professor David Nutt. ready, to give to each and every one of them Oxford and a fellow of the Royal College Michael had been a member and great in the same way. Together with his family, of Physicians in London. He established a supporter of TOIA for many years being an we will always remember the multifaceted world-leading Department of Psychiatry enthusiastic Italophile. Since his daughter, Michael: the remarkable scholar, self- in Oxford and won a Gold medal from the Nicola, became engaged to her Italian deprecating and modest; the impeccable Royal Medico-Psychological Association. He husband, he developed a great passion for gentleman always in a suit; the witty and died in the afternoon of Good Friday, 30th Italy, its history and above all its language. funny story teller; the adventurous traveller; March 2018, surrounded by his devoted wife He took learning Italian very seriously to the friend with a contagious laugh; but above Mandy, his three children Colin, Fiona and the extent that for almost twenty years he all the man with a great sense of family. His Nicola and his 8 grandchildren. continued to attend 2 classes of Italian devotion to Mandy unfailing throughout Michael pioneered and developed per week. As Michael’s tutor of Italian for almost 64 years of marriage, his special bond the use of cognitive behaviour therapy for almost 25 years, I feel privileged to have with each of his grandchildren with whom anxiety disorders and many of the treatments had such a gifted and determined student. I he shared his love for the theatre, as the he devised are now standard approaches couldn’t have wished for a more dedicated, unmissable January trip to the Pantomime recommended by NICE (National Institute attentive, eager pupil - always ready to endorsed, together, of course, with the for Health and Care Excellence) for people comment, participate, fully engage with yearly holiday get-together in their beloved with anxiety-related mental health problems. the group and the activities of the classes Sperlonga. Michael will be missed by all They have benefited enormous numbers without ever overstepping the mark, who have had the pleasure and privilege of of patients world-wide. He also mentored always giving space to the other colleagues knowing him.

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RATIONALISM ON SET: GLAMOUR AND MODERNITY IN 1930S ITALIAN CINEMA

THE ESTORICK COLLECTION OF MODERN ITALIAN ART, LONDON, 18 APRIL 2018 - 24 JUNE 2018

This exhibition explores a little-known period of Italian cinematic history, highlighting the strong Modernist influence apparent in the set designs created for a number of romantic comedies during the inter-war years. A selection of vintage photographs will be complemented by sketches and contemporary periodicals sourced from the Cineteca Nazionale, Centro Sperimentale © Estorick Collection di Cinematografia (Rome), the Cineteca di Bologna, the Museo Nazionale del Cinema (Turin) and the RIBA Collections. Set design for Rationalism on Set runs at London’s Estorick Cento di questi giorni Collection from 18 April until 24 June 2018. Until recently, Italy’s contributions to Many architects recognised the These modern sets were often architecture and cinema in the 1930s have powerful role that cinema could play in photographed prior to filming, and it is these been overlooked. The exhibition will look popularising modern architecture; some, photographs – which could be easily confused at the role played by Italian architects and like Giuseppe Capponi, got personally with the images of real interiors published architectural culture in the development involved with set design, while others, by contemporary architectural journals – of a Modernist aesthetic for film sets of the such as the editors of Casabella and that will be on display. Comparing them 1930s, which was increasingly adopted Domus, vocally supported their colleagues’ with images of contemporary architecture in contemporary films, largely due to the efforts to reflect in film settings the latest from the RIBA Collections will highlight production company Cines, which sought developments in architecture and to influences such as that of the Bauhaus, and to raise the quality of Italian cinema after a ‘educate’ the public by familiarising them reveal the international rather than local period of decline in the 1920s. with modern design. character of these films’ Modernist aesthetic.

TOIA GARDEN PARTY

C’è un giardino chiaro, fra mura basse, di erba secca e di luce, che cuoce adagio la sua terra. È una luce che sa di mare. Cesare Pavese

The summer is a glorious time of year and in a venue to be unveiled! It will be an in the autumn you can sometimes wonder opportunity to enjoy a convivial afternoon. if you have used it wisely and to the full; so Come and relish all things Italian, including i Saturday, 30th June, 2018, there is absolutely no excuse not to come to wine, food and company. Let’s celebrate the 5.00-7.00 p.m. TOIA Members the TOIA Garden Party. It will be outdoors, conclusion of this (academic) year’s diverse and Guests only. Members £3, it will be summer and it is going to be held and dynamic TOIA programme. Guests £5. Venue to be unveiled.

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

GARDEN APARTMENT IN THE BEAUTY AND TRANQUILLITY OF THE ETRUSCAN COUNTRYSIDE

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]

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CASA ROBERTO SYRACUSE

Casa Roberto Syracuse is located on the top floor of an historic baroque building, on the Island of Ortigia, UNESCO World Heritage Site and historical centre of Syracuse. It is a small attic with three terraces and it has been decorated with fantasy, originality and exquisite taste to offer a charming holiday. The terraces, 50 sq meters on three different levels, overlook the sea and the panorama. Their floors are in Sicilian cotto tiles and they are surrounded by a balustrade realized in blue cast iron, that recreates an original liberty design typical from the island. Inside, every room tells a story and a different emotion, by mixing local pieces of furniture with ethnic and vintage ones.

Max 4 people | check in between 16:00 and 21:00 – check out 11:00 | minimum stay 4 days, prices from €178 to €228 (3-4 people) - from €150 to €205 (1-2 people). To enquire, contact: [email protected]

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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 from the Dott.ssa. Luciana John, Membership Secretary or downloadable from our website: 6 Chalfont Road, Oxford OX2 6TH toia.co.uk. The TOIA Magazine is sent to members three Email: [email protected] 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: toia.co.uk/contact/ generously agreed to sponsor your new-look TOIA Magazine. MAGAZINE CONTACT: [email protected]

TOIA Events: at a glance

1 May Graham Harding, A May Day Celebration of Sparkling Wine, St Hugh’s College, St Margaret’s Road, Oxford, 7.30 p.m.

8 May Emeritus Professor Diego Zancani, The Clara Florio Cooper Memorial Lecture, Britalian: Italian Renaissance Food, and its Representation in Britain and in Italy, Main Hall, Taylor Institution, St Giles, Oxford, 5.00 p.m.

17 May Katia Lysy and Lucy Hughes-Hallett in conversation on Iris Origo’s A Chill in the Air, Mordan Hall, St Hugh’s College, St Margaret’s Road, Oxford, 7.30 for 8.00 p.m.

30 May Erica Benner on Machiavelli’s The Prince, Mordan Hall, St Hugh’s College, St. Margaret’s Road, Oxford, 7.30 for 8.00 p.m.

30 June Garden Party, 5.00 p.m. TOIA members and their guests only. Venue to be unveiled.