‘JO-ANNE DUGGAN creates gorgeous large-scale, colour beautiful photographs and arresting in themselves and an intelligent commen- tary on the nature of our engagement with historic visual and material culture, which often highlights the unexpected and the barely noticed. Her photographic approach is very sensitive to the complex history and meanings of the objects and interiors at which she gazes, very respectful of them, too, while remaining determinedly Australian and post-colonial in their presence.’ Bill Kent, ‘Introduction’, in Jo-Anne Duggan, Invisible Presences, Brisbane, Arts Queensland, 2006. Italy under the Southern Cross An Australasian Celebration of Dino De Poli and the Cassamarca Foundation Edited by David Moss and Gino Moliterno AUSTRALASIAN CENTRE FOR ITALIAN STUDIES Published by the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies Copyright © 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Authors. ISBN 978-0-646-55929-2 Typeset in Warnock Pro Printed by Padana Press Pty Limited iii In honour of Dr Dino De Poli on his visit to Perth, August 2009 Descendit Polius per caelum australe coruscans Et stellae stupefacta novae agmina Cangaruarum Pieridum Hesperiae numeris saltant celebrantque Cacatuae pendentes ramo altoque cachinnant. Artibus en gaudebit utrisque polis novus orbis. Discende De Poli, lampeggiante tra cieli australi Mandrie di canguri meravigliati dalla nuova stella Insieme saltellando alle Muse occidentali rendono grazie Ed negli alberi alti i cockatoo ridacchiano Cosi il nuovo mondo gioisce nelle arti di entrambi i poli. Down, through southern skies aflash, De Poli flies. A new star! marvel the mobs of kangaroos, Leaping in time to greet Ausonia’s Muses. From branches high above cackle the cockatoos. New World, rejoice! Now Arts from both the poles arise! Latin lines: Yasmin Haskell (Translated Gino Moliterno and David Moss) v TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword Alan Robson AM CitWA vii Preface ix Acknowledgements xi List of Plates xiii Introduction/Introduzione David Moss and Gino Moliterno 1 THE CASSAMARCA FOUNDATION AND ITS PROGETTO AUSTRALIA 19 Fondazione Cassamarca e il Progetto Umanesimo Latino nel Mondo Antonella Stelitano 20 Italian Studies and the Cassamarca Foundation: A Brief History Loretta Baldassar 24 Il Progetto Australia – Mission Accomplished Peter Leunig 35 CULTURAL COUNTERPOINT: ITALY AND AUSTRALIA 41 What’s So New about Neo-Latin? Yasmin Haskell 43 Death in Florence: Bill Kent’s Essay on Lorenzo’s Final Days Carolyn James 49 The Death of Lorenzo: ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ Bill Kent 52 Dante Down Under? Francis MacNamara’s A Convict’s Tour to Hell Gino Moliterno 72 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Sir Samuel Griffith, Dante and the Italian Presence in Nineteenth-Century Australian Literary Culture Ros Pesman 86 Italian and Australian readers: Gino Nibbi’s articles of the 1930s Tony Pagliaro 105 Il peso della lontananza nell’opera di Enoe Di Stefano Desmond O’Connor 117 Anomaly in the Academy: Italian Studies in Australia David Moss and Claire Kennedy 131 Shifting Representations of Italian in Australia Antonia Rubino 156 Teaching Italian in New Zealand: The Internet Project Gabriella Brussino 173 REFLECTIONS UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES 181 Matthew Absalom (183); Giorgia Alù (186); Laura Ancilli (188); Simone Battiston (191); Linda Bull (193); Marinella Caruso (196); Flavia Coassin (199); Luciana d’Arcangeli (201); Catherine Dewhirst (204); Nick Eckstein (209); Diana Glenn (212); Isobel Grave (214); Meg Greenberg (217); Nick Harney (218); John Kinder (222); Francesca Laura (225); M. Cristina Mauceri (228); Nerida Newbigin (230); Mariolina Pais Marden (233); Kerstin Pilz (235); Francesco Ricatti (237); Andrea Rizzi (241); Susanna Scarparo (244). NEW VOICES: THE ACIS-CASSAMARCA SCHOLARSHIPS 249 Kathleen Olive (251); Sandra Graham (251); Stephen Bennetts (252); Gary Bonar (252); Margaret Toomey (Geoghegan) (253); Natasha Bajan (253); Adriana Diaz (254); Sarah Finn (254); Mathias Stevenson (255); Ivana Krsnik-Lipohar (255); Daniela Rose (256); Catherine England (256); Sandra Margon (257); Cristina Potz (257); Glenys Adams (258); Sally Grant (259); Jodi Hodge (259); Brigid Maher (260); Roza Passos (260); Katherine Rowe (261); Natasha Amendola (261); Josh Brown (262); Theodore Ell (262); Annie Lord (263); Emma Nicholls (263); Barbara Pezzotti (264); Clare Tunney (264); Erika Piazzoli (265); Melanie Smans (266); Gianluca Caputo (266); Marco Ceccarelli (267); Francesca Ori (267); Elizabeth Reid (268). Index 269 vii Foreword Professor Alan Robson Vice-Chancellor, The University of Western Australia The opportunity to introduce this collection of writings in honour of Dr Dino De Poli, the late Emeritus Professor Bill Kent and the Cassamarca Foundation is one I embrace with pride and affection. As Vice-Chancellor of The University of Western Australia I am very proud of the fact that our University was chosen in 2001 as the base for the Foundation’s Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS), Cassamarca’s main instrument in Australia. I am also proud that the study of Italian language, society and culture is flourishing in our own University and many other Australasian tertiary institutions. This was not always the case. Indeed, two decades ago, Italian studies were in serious danger of extinction. A visit to Australia in March 1998 by the Foundation’s President, Dr De Poli, led to the reversal of this trend with the establishment of the Australia Project Committee, of which our University, along with others, was a member. The Foundation now funds 13 posts in Italian and Latin studies around Australia, and through ACIS it supports annual scholarships for Australasian students’ research projects in Italy. It is with great affection that I acknowledge Dr De Poli, philanthropist, lawyer, bank president and politician, whose mission is to revive and in- tegrate Italian studies in universities throughout the world. Dr De Poli’s willingness to accept an invitation to our University by a young UWA re- searcher, Dr Loretta Baldassar, when she actively sought out philanthropic support for Italian studies research and teaching in Australia, speaks vol- umes about him. His capacity for friendship and his passion for the pro- motion of cross-cultural awareness meant that Professor Baldassar’s in- vitation was not only taken up but resulted in the establishment of ACIS. This book is also a tribute to Professor Kent who, a month before his untimely death on 30 August 2010, was appointed Emeritus Professor of Monash University to mark his retirement after a career spanning four decades. His distinguished career included appointments as Visiting Scholar and Visiting Professor at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Cen- tre for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence. Articles by both Professor viii FOREWORD Kent and his wife, colleague and collaborator Dr Carolyn James feature in this publication, which also serves as a recognition of the Foundation. Along with promoting Italian culture, the Cassamarca Foundation op- erates in a number of fields including scientific research, the preservation of the environment, health, education, the arts, and emigration and immi- gration. With the aim of raising the profile of humanist Latin in Australia, the Foundation created a Chair in Latin Humanism at The University of Western Australia. The position, with its emphasis on the role of Latin humanism in the development of Western civilisation, truly captures Dr De Poli’s vision. Our region, and particularly our nation, has benefitted enormously – and been shaped by – the many hundreds of thousands of Italian people who made Australia their home, particularly from the late 19th to the late 20th century. We celebrate their courage in exchanging their green, white and red tricolour flag for Australia’s stars of the Southern Cross and rejoice in the richness of culture and language they brought with them. We congratulate Dr De Poli, the Cassamarca Foundation and the contributors to this book for helping to ensure that this richness continues to bear fruit. ix PREFACE Our aim in this book is to weave a kind of cento out of contributions by the members of the three ‘generations’ of Italianists associated with the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS) and the Cassamarca Foundation in order to celebrate the support of the Foundation, and in particular its President, Dino De Poli, for Italian Studies in Australia. We also wish to honour the memory of one of the founding members of ACIS, Bill Kent, who provided inspiration and help for the study of Italy, particu- lar Renaissance Italy, over many years. His influence, direct and indirect, can be felt in many of the essays and reflections which follow. We have divided the book into four parts, preceded by short intro- ductions which together reconstruct the establishment of the connection between the Cassamarca Foundation and Australia, the history of ACIS, the Cassamarca Lectureships and the ACIS-Cassamarca Scholarships. In Part 1 we provide a summary of the work of the Cassamarca Founda- tion and its Progetto Australia, set in the wider context of the Founda- tion’s Progetto Umanesimo Latino. Appropriately the story is told by the three protagonists in the creation and maintenance of the Treviso-Perth connection – Antonella Stelitano, Loretta Baldassar and Peter Leunig. In Part 2 we reprint,