TITLE RIVISTA 2020 In this issue: In love with Italian food Lina Wertmüller on film Understanding Ravenna Dante’s divine light THE THE MAGAZINE OF 1 BRITISH ITALIANSOCIETY RIVISTA 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 Dante’s divine light Women who left their mark on Mafia – machismo – fascismo 4 The annual Leconfield Lecture: 12 their societies 20 The cinema of Lina Wertmüller Susan Kikoker describes Prof A 21st century assessment of some Silvia Badiali appreciates Italian Martin Kemp‘s enthralling talk famous historical figures experts discussing the great storyteller of Italian cinema Forgotten women of classical How we fell in love with Italian 6 music 14 food A collection of collections Patrizia Dina listened to these Diego Zancani delivers the Charles 22 The Torlonia marbles unveiled ‘notes from the silence’ with much de Cassiron Memorial Lecture. pleasure Chloe Challis follows the The trulli of Puglia culinary steps from Roman times 24 Saving an architectural tradition Understanding Ravenna until today 8 A visit to eight World Heritage A different Vatican sites – Michael Starks describes Saints’ days in south-eastern Sicily 26 The year of the coronavirus in and Peter Crossley marvels at their 16 Susan Kikoler’s rich experience Rome: David Willey was there impact of famous festivals. Jane Everson followed them An enormous privilege The Medici bankers 28 Interviewing Katia Pizzi, new 10 Ian Morgan unravels financial The snowball revolt Director of the Italian Cultural thinking in the Renaissance 18 Claire Judde offers a new look at Institute, ambassador for Italian Venetian society in the 16th century culture Published by Events & Membership Rivista Editor: Philippa Leslie Design & print: The British Italian Society Secretary: Rhuna Barduagni [email protected] Dark Raspberry Creative www.british-italian.org [email protected] No.403, 2020 BIS © 2020 www.darkraspberry.co.uk THE MAGAZINE OF THE BRITISH ITALIAN SOCIETY 24 Review of the year Richard Northern looks back on an unusual year ittle did we know, as 2020 began, what a Lchallenging year it would prove! During the winter we had enjoyed fascinating lectures on modern Italy, Italian cinema and renaissance politics in Venice, plus a festive Christmas Dinner in Islington. But a national 29 lockdown, introduced to stop the spread of the Covid-19 virus, forced us to suspend our programme in March. Since then, we have managed to relaunch a monthly programme of digital lectures, beginning in June with Susan Kikoler’s lively account of Saints’ Days in Richard Northern, BIS Chair Sicily. We have hosted webinar lectures (a novelty for all of us) every month on themes ranging from renaissance banking, • £300 to the Italian School in London, female musicians and composers, partly in payment for their housing of Italian food and mediaeval history to the the BIS Archives. leading ladies of the Renaissance. We are delighted that so many members and The Society sponsored two new national friends have been able to join us for these student prizes for translation from Italian talks, particularly since they include many in 2019. The competition was organised by who would not have been able to get to Warwick University. The winners were Alex London for our regular events. Joseland (first prize) and Jemma Henry We are also grateful to Justin Ellis, who (second prize). The scheme was a great kindly organised an informal pub quiz over success, and the standard of entries high. zoom in June, which was great fun and We have agreed to sponsor it again in 2021. provided a welcome opportunity to ‘meet’ We are grateful, as always, to our Patron, each other again. A rare pleasure in these Ambassador Raffaele Trombetta, for his socially-distanced times. Professor Martin support. We also thank Dr Katia Pizzi, the Kemp gave us an outstanding Leconfield Director of the Italian Cultural Institute Artisan ceramic tradition Lecture in November on the impact of and a long-standing friend of the Society, 29 under threat Dante’s poetry on contemporary artists. for her active collaboration. Thanks are The work of one Tuscan family The Society made a number of grants also due to our President, Olga Polizzi, for over three generations and donations during the year to support her wise guidance and generous support worthy artistic, academic and other projects during the year. Post-war Italy: an outsider/ in line with its aims. These included: We owe a particular debt of gratitude 30 insider view • £750 towards the costs of the Festival too to Diana Darlington and Susan Prof John Foot assesses strands of Italian Literature in London (FILL) in Kikoler, who both stood down this of the society after 1945. Vanessa Notting Hill in November 2019. year after serving for many years as Hall-Smith applauds this accessible • £200 towards a conference on the Trustees. Both have made an enormous path to its understanding Role of Women in Sardinian Culture at contribution to the Society’s work. I would Cambridge University in September 2021. also like to thank Rhuna Barduagni, Villa Wolkonsky • £500 to the Comitato Sapienza who continues to provide an excellent 31 Author and diplomat John Camerino for a post-earthquake project service to the Society and its members, Shepherd on the challenges of to restore the University of Camerino. and Philippa Leslie, who has managed to writing its history • £500 to Liverpool University Press for produce an excellent magazine in such a book of photographs as part of a difficult circumstances this year. The Fontanellato escape transnational study of Italian. We look forward to welcoming all Rivista 32 John Simkins on testing times • £200 towards an Italian Studies readers to our new season of events in 2021, translating this extraordinary story Conference hosted online by King’s and hope that we will be able to meet again College, London in June 2020. in person before too long. Cover photo: Chef grating parmesan • £300 towards the Canaletto: Painting ©istock Venice exhibition and educational Richard Northern, Chairman of the British Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to workshops in Bath in September 2020. Italian Society, is a former diplomat obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that will be acknowledged in 3 a future issue. RIVISTA Dante’s divine light: Prof Martin Kemp was the 2020 Leconfield Lecture invited speaker Susan Kikoler describes an enthralling talk The Leconfield Lecture is named after the first Chairman of the British Italian Society. Hugh divine light as radiating from a point in Wyndham, who was Chairman for 12 years in the 1940s and 1950s, became Lord Leconfield straight lines. Fra Angelico in the late in 1952. After Lord Leconfield’s death in 1963, Sir Ashley Clarke, then Chairman of the Society, fifteenth century depicted the massed inaugurated this series of annual lectures in his honour. Ever since, the Leconfield Lecture has ranks of angels on clouds. Both used been the main event in the Society’s annual calendar, and has always been given by a speaker of the lens-like shape of the mandorla to particular distinction. encase the figure of Christ from which holy radiance shines. This almond- shaped aureola was at this time realised will mark the 700th his alta fantasia fails. This new book is in a physical form, by means of winches 2021anniversary of Dante’s death a paragone between art and poetry, an and heavily lit stage machinery, also and, in anticipation, members of the exploration of whether painting, using designed later by artists such as Pietro British Italian Society were privileged to be mere pigment, can compare with poetry’s da Cortona, to form the centrepiece of given a preview of Professor Martin Kemp’s hold on the imagination. Can paint really religious spectacles in Florence and for the forthcoming book Visions of Heaven: Dante capture the ineffable? devotional ceremony of the Quarantore, and the Art of the Divine Light, an extended In all Abrahamic religions light is which travelled from church to church version of an earlier essay, which explores seen as the manifestation of divinity glorifying the Eucharist. the legacy of Dante’s Il Paradiso on visual and goodness. God often appears as a Subsequently the use of gold for divine art. In contrast to the tenebrous L’Inferno luminous cloud. In Islam, where depiction light was discarded in favour of a more and Il Purgatorio, with its glimpses of of the human form is forbidden, light plays naturalistic presentation. The figures in angelic light Il Paradiso is infused with a special role, whether radiating through The Senigallia Madonna by Piero della divine radiance before which Dante breaks windows in a mosque or in descriptive Francesca are bathed in natural light down until, guided by Beatrice, he comes lines from the Koran on a delicate lamp. which is painted in tiny atom-like spots to a deeper understanding and finally can Optical science was brought to a high to show the rays penetrating through withstand the vision of the Holy Trinity in level of sophistication by the Arabs. Ibn al- unbroken glass, a metaphor for the their rainbow orbs. At the very end even Haytham in The Book of Optics, a synthesis Virgin’s unviolated virginity. Dante himself of anatomy, physics and theology, was the describes light as dancing atoms and first to explain that vision is the result of affirms that divine light acts differently light reflecting from an object on to the eye from normal phenomena. Thus in and translations of this work were deeply Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation and influential on later philosophers, like Constantine’s Dream it is the protagonist Roger Bacon, and visual artists.