THE OXFORDITALIANASSOCIATION

TRINITY, 2018

TOIA MAGAZINE # 82

©G

overno Italiano

PADUA MEETS OXFORD: A CELEBRATION OF INTERCONNECTION

T here are many facets to rebirth and renewal in the springtime and this is one of them: a collaborative

project, 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 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). Whatever one’s views are about Brexit, maintaining, renewing and growing burgeoning relationships with our neighbours is important.

Forging the initial bonds some time ago, Professor Timothy Wilson and Professor Emanuela Tandello created a tie between the Sub-Faculty of Italian at Oxford and italianistica at the University of Padua and, successively, the Polo Museale of the Veneto. These incipient initiatives garnered some success, but

there followed a fallow period. Redoubtably, together with the engagement of Padua-based Alessandra Petrina (a Renaissance English specialist and a former Visiting Fellow of All Souls College) and Professor Chris Wickham, the group organised academic exchanges in the Humanities

between the two Universities. The breadth and vision of this relationship was further extended by Tim Wilson - former keeper of Western Art at the Ashmolean Museum and specialist on ceramics - to involve the interaction of ‘town and gown’, universities always being a part of a city’s activities.

www.fcagroup.com www.cnhindustrial.com

Prato della Valle

© D

idier Descouens

2

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 will host a delegation welcoming colleagues from Padua University and the Sindaco of Padua, the dynamic Sergio Giordani, 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 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. Consider that many members of the 16th century intelligentsia went to Padua to study, particularly in the fields of Law and Medicine, such as Thomas Linacre who took a degree in Medicine with distinction at Padua before returning to Oxford.

The link between the Universities includes Medicine, Physical Sciences, Astrophysics, Social Sciences, Archaeology, History, Modern Languages and Linguistics. Future possibilities (round-table events,

staff exchanges, summer schools, book history and manuscript conservation) are as infinite as Galileo’s heliocentric universe … and one that we now know extends infinitely beyond.

TOIA MAGAZINE # 82

Specola di Padova

Botanic Gardens Capella degli Scrovegni

© Ivanfurlanis

© J

osé Luiz Bernardes R

ibeiro

3

For further information go to toia.co.uk

In a recent book on food and film (Feasting our Eyes, by Linda Linderfelt and Fabio Parasecoli, 2017) the authors point out that “Food has colonised the Internet through a plethora of specialised websites, videos, blogs, photos and social media”. We are all aware of this, and yet there are many aspects of food history which need to be clarified and explained. After all, food is a topic we cannot avoid if we want to survive.

So, what was the situation like in Early Modern Times? Or, as it used to be called, at the time of the Renaissance?

It is well known that when Elizabeth I became the Queen of England, Italian was quite fashionable as a language in London. The Queen was said to be able to converse in Italian with the Venetian ambassadors, and she granted a number of gentlemen licenses to travel on the continent. Specialised books on Italian history, language, and diet started to appear. A great promoter of Italian vocabulary, a friend of Shakespeare, and the translator of Montaigne’s works, John Florio (1553–1625) included numerous Italian food terms in his highly successful Italian-English dictionaries, such as lasagne, pappardelle, ravioli, tagliarelli or tagliatelli and many others, including pizza. Common names, perhaps, but not always the same things, however, as we know them today. Even now we sometimes have many different names for very similar dishes. The only way to find out what they looked like, or maybe even tasted like, is to browse through recipe books, literary works and diaries.

Fortunately, some wealthy British who travelled to the continent at the end of the sixteenth century and in the early part of the seventeenth have left us detailed accounts

of their visits to Italian cities. Some of them were surprised that, in Italy, frogs and snails were considered delicacies, and frogs were more widespread in Northern Italy than in France. The abundance of fruit and vegetables, and of many other provisions was regularly recorded, as well as the occasional inadequate treatment in some roadside inn. In order to prepare for their journeys, travellers had access to bilingual manuals of conversation published in London. Some of the dialogues can give us an insight into the interests of Renaissance travellers.

Were Italian recipe books known in England? At least one was certainly translated, with some censure on the amount of garlic recommended in the Italian original.

Some Italian expats, like Giacomo Castelvetro (1546–1616), a tutor in Italian at Cambridge, decided to intervene in the debate about food by dedicating a book to the well-known socialite, Lucy, Countess of Bedford, in an attempt to encourage the British public to eat more vegetables and fruit, and illustrate the varieties that existed in Italy and in Britain.

Turning to Italian sources themselves, I shall introduce the works of a fascinating poet, singer, composer, playwright and improviser who extolled the virtues of the inhabitants of Bologna, the city that in the Middle Ages had acquired the sobriquet of la grassa because of its love for all sorts of food and sausages. The author’s name is Giulio Cesare Croce (1550–1609), or Giulio Cesare dalla Lira, because of one of his favourite instruments, the lira da braccio. Some of his comical pieces are still entertaining, especially when he talks about some of his favourite delicacies, for which recipes will be provided.

i The Clara Florio Cooper Memorial Lecture, Main Hall, Taylor Institution, St. Giles, Oxford 5.00 p.m. on Tuesday, 8th May, 2018. Admission is free. All welcome. Drinks reception follows lecture.

Joining the evening will be a delegation from the University of Padua and the Comune, celebrating a unique collaboration and possible twinning of cities and universities.

Diego Zancani is Emeritus Professor of Italian, University of Oxford, Emeritus Fellow, Balliol College. He was a lecturer in Italian at the universities of Reading, Liverpool, and Kent at Canterbury, before being appointed a tutor and Fellow of Balliol College Oxford in 1994. He was a Visiting Professor in various Italian Universities and twice at Harvard University. He has written extensively on Italian Renaissance literature, History of the Language, and History of Food.

BRITALIAN: ITALIAN RENAISSANCE FOOD, AND ITS REPRESENTATION IN BRITAIN AND IN ITALYA LECTURE BY EMERITUS PROFESSOR DIEGO ZANCANI

THE CLARA FLORIO COOPER MEMORIAL LECTURE, 2018

TOIA MAGAZINE # 82

The Well Stocked Kitchen

4

A CHILL IN THE AIRIRIS 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.

TOIA MAGAZINE # 82

5

Katia Lysy was born in Rome. She has worked in publishing and as a journalist and translator. She now lives between Rome and southern Tuscany, where she assists her mother Benedetta, daughter of the writer Iris Origo, in the management and development of the family estate of La Foce.

Lucy Hughes-Hallett is the author of The Pike, a biography of Gabriele d’Annunzio, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, the Costa Biography Award, the Duff Cooper Prize and the Paddy Power Political Biography of the Year Award. Her other books are Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions and Heroes: Saviours, Traitors and Supermen. Hughes-Hallett is also a

respected critic who has reviewed for major national newspapers, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her latest novel is Peculiar Ground. She lives in London.

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 in 1917 on the allied side during the terrible fighting in the Dolomites, had no enthusiasm for the new “axis” with the Nazis. Even as war fever mounted after the German occupation of Prague and threats to Poland, there was an air of disbelief that it could be in anyone’s interests to become embroiled in a war of Hitler’s making. One young woman, who's expecting her first baby, prays daily that it will be a girl. ‘What’s the use of having boys if they’ll take them away and kill them?’

Italy then invaded Albania. The fascist press claimed that its army was saving the country from brigands. One and a half million men were called up, a disaster in a primarily agricultural country: even then it was far short of the “eight million” bayonets of Mussolini’s ludicrous boast, which prompted jests about the lack of rifles to put them on.

TOIA MAGAZINE # 82

Katia Lysy

Lucy Hughes-Hallett

6

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 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 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 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 children to eat?’”

On 1 September, Hitler invaded Poland, claiming that the fault lay with the Poles for having mobilised when German armies massed on her borders. “Total silence from Rome,” Origo notes. But those who admired Mussolini for keeping Italy out of the war would be disabused.

In June 1940, he became the jackal to Hitler’s lion, declaring war on Britain and France just as the victorious Germans were poised to enter Paris. All Italians were summoned to the wireless to listen to his bombastic speech. The contadini can do little but shrug and turn away. Their “rough, awkward country boys dressed up in ill-fitting uniforms” will pay the price.

i Mordan Hall, St Hugh’s College, St Margaret’s Road, Oxford, 7.30 p.m. drinks reception, 8.00 p.m. conversation, on Thursday, 17th May 2018. Entry: Members £2, non-members £5, students under 30 free of charge.

Caroline Moorehead

TOIA MAGAZINE # 82©

Estate of Iris O

rigo

Iris Origo

7

HAVE WE GOT MACHIAVELLI ALL WRONG?A LECTURE BY 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 to protect their interests against predatory elites and foreigners. Fan partisan hatreds so that you alone seem to rise above them, saviour of the fatherland.

The book is The Prince (Il Principe), its author Niccolò Machiavelli. Minus television and Twitter, it seems the techniques of ambitious “new princes”, as he calls them, haven’t changed a bit. But why did Machiavelli write a whole book about them, peppering it with men who soared to power by greasing palms and exploiting weaknesses: Julius Caesar, Pope Alexander VI, Cesare Borgia?

Most people today assume that Machiavelli didn’t just describe their methods, he recommended them – that he himself is the original Machiavellian, the first honest teacher of dishonest politics. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the adjective has come to mean

“cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous, especially in politics”. Along with our daily news, popular culture has brought legions of Machiavellian figures into our homes and made them both human and entertaining: Tony Soprano, Frank and Claire Underwood in House of Cards, Lord Petyr Baelish from Game of Thrones. These Machiavellians are scoundrels, but subtle ones. In watching their manoeuvres on screen we, like their victims, can’t help being a little seduced by their warped ingenuity. So it no longer shocks us to think that a highly intelligent man who lived five centuries ago, in times we imagine were far crueller than ours, spent night after night at his desk in the Tuscan countryside, his wife and children sleeping nearby, drafting the rulebook for today’s cynical populists and authoritarians.

But what if we’re overlooking Machiavelli’s less obvious messages, his deeper insights into politics? Until about a decade ago, it never occurred to me to ask this question. It was part of my job to teach Plato-to-Nato courses in the history of ideas, and Machiavelli came up early in the year, squeezed between Augustine and Hobbes. Like thousands of overworked lecturers, I had my shortcuts. Picking up The Prince or Discourses, I’d highlight all the attention-grabbing Machiavellian phrases and skim the rest. Academic summaries told me that Machiavelli was devoted to the salvation of his native city, Florence, and his country, Italy, at a time when both were ravaged by wars. Yes, he made sinister excuses for violence and hypocrisy. But his reasons were patriotic, well-meaning, human.

TOIA MAGAZINE # 82

Niccolò Machiavelli

Erica Benner

8

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 first family, the super-wealthy Medici. But as a leading civil servant in charge of foreign affairs and defence, Machiavelli had been one of the republic’s stoutest defenders. Just a year before he finished the first draft of his “little book”, the Medici swept into Florence in a foreign-backed coup after spending years in exile. They were deeply suspicious of his loyalties, dismissed him from his posts, then had him imprisoned and tortured under suspicion of plotting against them.

If Machiavelli did send the Medici The Prince, which seems unlikely, he could not have expected them to take its “advice” – to bribe, swindle, and assassinate one’s way to power – as gifts of friendly wisdom. Nor would it have helped his cause that he addresses the Medici as “princes” in his dedication, and insists on their remoteness from the people. Just like modern dictators, the Medici were keen to keep up the fiction that they were mere “first citizens” in Florence’s republic, not monarchs or tyrants. Calling them princes was an audacious piece of cheek. No wonder readers of The Prince in the early modern era – philosophers such as Francis Bacon, Spinoza and Rousseau – had no doubt the book was a cunning exposé of princely snares, a self-defence manual for citizens. “The book of republicans,” Rousseau dubbed it.

Don’t judge by reputation or appearances. “Take nothing on authority.” These are among Machiavelli’s less-known maxims, and we should apply them to his own words. If we look again at how he

lived his life and how that life shaped his thoughts, it looks as if we’ve got Machiavelli all wrong.

And it’s time we got him right, because no contemporary writer is a better guide to understanding and confronting our own political world. Both as secretary to the republic and through his writings – which include reams of poetry, risqué comedies and a quietly tragic history of Florence – he spent his life fighting to defend his city’s republican government against threats from within and without. It was a hard fight, with battles on many fronts. It took Machiavelli on a long journey across France with King Louis XII, and to the court of Cesare Borgia, where he spent nerve-racking months trying to dissuade the violent youth from attacking Florence.

His city’s tempestuous history taught Machiavelli a lesson he tries to convey to future readers: that no one man can overpower a free people unless they let him. “Men are so simple,” he tells us, “so obedient to present necessities, that he who deceives will always find someone who will let himself be deceived.” To each of us, he says: don’t become that someone. Citizens need to realise that by trusting leaders too much and themselves too little, they create their own political nightmares. “I’d like to teach them the way to hell,” he told a friend toward the end of his life, “so they can steer clear of it.”

So what can citizens do to preserve their freedoms? For one thing, they can train themselves to see through the various ruses in the would-be tyrant’s handbook. Machiavelli’s The Prince describes most of them, in ways that mimic their disorienting ambiguity. On the day Donald Trump signed his executive order on immigration from seven countries, for instance, these comments were painfully apt:

Nothing makes a new prince so esteemed as to carry on great enterprises and give rare examples of himself. In our times we have Ferdinand of Aragon. If you consider his actions, you will find them great and some of them extraordinary. He kept the minds of the barons of Castile preoccupied with war; so they did not perceive that he was acquiring reputation and power over them. Besides this, to undertake greater enterprises, always making use of religion, he turned to an act of pious cruelty, expelling the Marranos [forcibly converted Muslims and Jews] and purging them from his kingdom; nor could there be a more wretched example than this. And so he has always done and ordered great things, which have always kept the minds of his subjects in suspense and admiration and occupied with their outcome. And his actions have followed one upon another so that men never have time to work steadily against him.

TOIA MAGAZINE # 82©

Gage S

kidmore

Donald Trump

9

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 readers of political danger signs, and ruthless warriors for our freedoms.

Erica Benner is a writer and scholar who works on moral and political thought.

For the last decade or so she has worked on Machiavelli. Her latest book, Be Like the Fox, is a biography of the good man. Unlike most scholars today -

but like some readers nearer to his own time - she sees Machiavelli as a lifelong republican who fought hard against tyranny and corruption. Since this made him a troublemaker in the eyes of princes and popes, he became an artist of cunning dissimulation who doesn't always ‘say what I mean, or mean what I say’ (as he wrote to a friend).

TOIA MAGAZINE # 82

i Mordan Hall, St Hugh’s College, St Margaret’s Road, Oxford, 7.30 p.m. drinks reception, 8.00 p.m. conversation, on Wednesday, 30th May 2018. Entry: Members £2, non-members £5, students under 30 free of charge.

10

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 initiative by being a TOIA member.

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 esami scritti che abbiamo in Inghilterra. Mi è piaciuto anche imparare del romanticismo durante le lezioni italiane, specificamente su Leopardi e Manzoni, due scrittori molto importanti. Nella matematica, ho imparato il tema dei limiti, che non avevo studiato mai in Inghilterra. Un’altra materia che mi è piaciuta era la filosofia, che non studio qui. A parte queste cose specifiche, ho imparato anche di più sull'educazione italiana in generale. Per esempio, ero sorpresa di scoprire che la classe non cambia mai durante i cinque anni di liceo. Per di più,

una classe rimane nella stessa stanza per tutta la giornata, e gli studenti non hanno alcuna pausa durante la giornata scolastica. Sebbene io preferisca complessivamente il sistema educativo britannico, preferisco come, in Italia, rimanere con la stessa classe per tutto il liceo. Ho visto quanto fossero tutti vicini, e era questa atmosfera

amichevole e inclusiva che mi ha fatto sentire veramente accettata nella classe!

Avevo chiesto di vedere quanti più siti storici possibile, perché mi piace molto la storia. Pertanto, quando ero in Italia, la mia partner mi ha portato a molti siti storici, come il castello di Baia e le terme di Baia, Pompei, e l'Anfiteatro Flavio.

LA MIA ESPERIENZA A POZZUOLI BY ANNA ZAKONYI

TOIA MAGAZINE # 82©

Ra B

oe©

Erasm

o Mazzella

Pozzuoli, Naples

Pozzuoli seafront

11

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Professor Michael Graham Gelder. He was one of the leading psychiatrists of his generation, a fellow of Merton College Oxford, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London. He established a world-leading Department of Psychiatry in Oxford and won a Gold medal from the Royal Medico-Psychological Association. He died in the afternoon of Good Friday, 30th March 2018, surrounded by his devoted wife Mandy, his three children Colin, Fiona and Nicola and his 8 grandchildren.

Michael pioneered and developed the use of cognitive behaviour therapy for anxiety disorders and many of the treatments he devised are now standard approaches recommended by NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) for people with anxiety-related mental health problems. They have benefited enormous numbers of patients world-wide. He also mentored

many of the outstanding psychologists and psychiatrists who now lead the field, like Professor David Clark, Professor Anke Ehlers, Professor Chris Fairburn, Professor Keith Hawton, and last but not least Professor David Nutt.

Michael had been a member and great supporter of TOIA for many years being an enthusiastic Italophile. Since his daughter, Nicola, became engaged to her Italian husband, he developed a great passion for Italy, its history and above all its language. He took learning Italian very seriously to the extent that for almost twenty years he continued to attend 2 classes of Italian per week. As Michael’s tutor of Italian for almost 25 years, I feel privileged to have had such a gifted and determined student. I couldn’t have wished for a more dedicated, attentive, eager pupil - always ready to comment, participate, fully engage with the group and the activities of the classes without ever overstepping the mark, always giving space to the other colleagues

respecting the fair balance of interaction needed in a group.

And certainly, fairness played a great role in Michael’s family life, as the children recall the help and advice, he was always there, ready, to give to each and every one of them in the same way. Together with his family, we will always remember the multifaceted Michael: the remarkable scholar, self-deprecating and modest; the impeccable gentleman always in a suit; the witty and funny story teller; the adventurous traveller; the friend with a contagious laugh; but above all the man with a great sense of family. His devotion to Mandy unfailing throughout almost 64 years of marriage, his special bond with each of his grandchildren with whom he shared his love for the theatre, as the unmissable January trip to the Pantomime endorsed, together, of course, with the yearly holiday get-together in their beloved Sperlonga. Michael will be missed by all who have had the pleasure and privilege of knowing him.

In questi posti, lei mi ha raccontato molti fatti interessanti, e quindi ho potuto imparare di più della storia puteolana, pompeiana e napoletana. Il mio luogo storico preferito erano le terme di Baia, dove abbiamo potuto esplorare fessure

nascoste e mettere insieme dalle rovine le diverse aree utilizzate. La mia partner anche mi ha portato alla costiera amalfitana, il parco virgiliano, e il Monte Nuovo.

Ho imparato di più della cultura e della lingua napoletana mentre ero a Pozzuoli. La mia famiglia e i miei amici tutti hanno voluto insegnarmi le frasi napoletane, e, quando me ne sono andata, ho ricevuto molti messaggi che hanno detto ‘Annarè, stai ka!’. Era interessante da un punto di vista linguistico vedere come il dialetto differisce dalla lingua italiana. Benché la differenza tra napoletano e italiano significasse che qualche volta era abbastanza difficile capire quello che la famiglia della mia partner mi diceva, adesso so molte frasi napoletane! Mi è piaciuta molto la cultura familiare che

ho sperimentato. Mi sono sentito sempre amata e inclusa, e non avrei potuto sperare in una famiglia migliore! Tra gli amici della mia partner, ho fatto anche amici nuovi che presto mi visiteranno quì in Inghilterra, e che vorrei rivedere l’anno prossimo a Pozzuoli.

Concludendo, vorrei dire che tutta questa esperienza non sarebbe stata possibile senza l’aiuto del Dorothy Rowe Trust, e specificamente di Dr John e Signora Stellardi. Questa è stata un’esperienza di vita, e non è possibile per me spiegare quanto ho amato il mio tempo in Italia. Ho conosciuto persone con cui resterò in contatto per il resto della mia vita, e ho fatto ricordi che ricorderò sempre. Ho imparato molto della storia e della cultura italiana, e la mia fiducia e capacità di parlare in italiano sono aumentate tanto.

IN MEMORIAM:

AN OBITUARY OF MICHAEL GELDER BY ANNA DI STEFANO

TOIA MAGAZINE # 82

Macellum of Pozzuoli

© F

erdi

nand

o M

arfe

lla

12

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

Cesare Pavese

The summer is a glorious time of year and in the autumn you can sometimes wonder if you have used it wisely and to the full; so there is absolutely no excuse not to come to the TOIA Garden Party. It will be outdoors, it will be summer and it is going to be held

TOIAGARDEN PARTY

i Saturday, 30th June, 2018, 5.00-7.00 p.m. TOIA Members and Guests only. Members £3, Guests £5. Venue to be unveiled.

in a venue to be unveiled! It will be an opportunity to enjoy a convivial afternoon. Come and relish all things Italian, including wine, food and company. Let’s celebrate the conclusion of this (academic) year’s diverse and dynamic TOIA programme.

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 di Cinematografia (Rome), the Cineteca di Bologna, the Museo Nazionale del Cinema (Turin) and the RIBA Collections. Rationalism on Set runs at London’s Estorick Collection from 18 April until 24 June 2018.

Until recently, Italy’s contributions to architecture and cinema in the 1930s have been overlooked. The exhibition will look at the role played by Italian architects and architectural culture in the development of a Modernist aesthetic for film sets of the 1930s, which was increasingly adopted in contemporary films, largely due to the production company Cines, which sought to raise the quality of Italian cinema after a period of decline in the 1920s.

Many architects recognised the powerful role that cinema could play in popularising modern architecture; some, like Giuseppe Capponi, got personally involved with set design, while others, such as the editors of Casabella and Domus, vocally supported their colleagues’ efforts to reflect in film settings the latest developments in architecture and to ‘educate’ the public by familiarising them with modern design.

These modern sets were often photographed prior to filming, and it is these photographs – which could be easily confused with the images of real interiors published by contemporary architectural journals – that will be on display. Comparing them with images of contemporary architecture from the RIBA Collections will highlight influences such as that of the Bauhaus, and reveal the international rather than local character of these films’ Modernist aesthetic.

RATIONALISM ON SET: GLAMOUR AND MODERNITY IN 1930S ITALIAN CINEMATHE ESTORICK COLLECTION OF MODERN ITALIAN ART, LONDON, 18 APRIL 2018 - 24 JUNE 2018

TOIA MAGAZINE # 82

Set design for Cento di questi giorni

© E

storick Collection

13

GARDEN APARTMENT IN THE BEAUTY AND TRANQUILLITY OF THE ETRUSCAN COUNTRYSIDE

Two-bedroom furnished apartment (sleeps five) with own patio, garden and garage. Fully equipped modern kitchen. One of two dwellings in a four-hectare rural property in Bracciano Regional Park, yet close (50 km) to Rome. Ideal for relaxation, sports and visits to Lake Bracciano, or the many delightful nearby places of interest: Tarquinia, Bracciano, Viterbo, Trevignano, Terme di Stigliano, Sutri and, of course, Rome itself.

Available throughout the year: weekend (from £50), weekly (from £140) or monthly (from £400).

For further information and photos, please go to: www.casadellaluna.com

The natural beauty of the medieval town of Taormina is hard to dispute. The view of the sea and Mount Etna from its jagged cactus-covered cliffs is as close to perfection as a panorama can get, particularly on clear days when the snow-capped volcano’s white puffs of smoke rise against the cobalt blue sky. Villa Britannia is a centrally-located small and exclusive boutique B&B, ideal for those with a love of food and wine, as well as those wishing to discover the multifarious cultural heritage of Taormina and Sicily more widely. Enjoy local cooking classes with Louisa, Etna wine tasting and traditional Sicilian bread making and much more. For further details and special events, see: www.villabritannia.com

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

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: pianta@btopenworld.com

VENETIAN CHARMS IN DORSODURO

Four-bedroom, one-bathroom flat, within a family-owned villa in Alassio, zona Paradiso, ten minutes’ walk from the beach and the centre of town. Alassio hosts an English library with over 20,000 volumes, a legacy from the past, and the Hanbury Tennis Club, a real gem, which contains some legacy memorabilia, ideal for tennis fans and anyone interested in playing tennis whilst on holiday. For further information and availability, contact Rupert Parmenter 00 39 331 6139126 or email rupert.parmenter@yahoo.com

THE ITALIAN RIVIERA AND ALASSIO’S FASCINATING PAST: FLAT TO RENT

ELEGANT TERRACED HOUSE AVAILABLE IN HIP AND CENTRAL JERICHO

Quiet, elegant Victorian terraced house in hip, central Jericho, close to University departments and Colleges. Two double bedrooms (one en-suite), two shower/wcs, small garden, efficient central heating, fireplace. Five to 15 minutes to transport hubs, shops, cinemas, Thames, lovely walks, etc., free WIFI. No parking. £2,500pcm + utilities (negotiable). Please contact joellemann@gmail.com

CLASSIFIEDS

14

CASA ROBERTO SYRACUSE

2 bedrooms | 2 bathrooms | living | dining room | kitchen | 3 terraces | air conditioning | heating | dishwasher | washing machine | wifi | tv

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: roberto@casaroberto.uy

TOIA MAGAZINE # 82

15

TOIA MAGAZINE # 82

TOIA is an Oxford-based cultural association for those interested in any aspect of Italy and its culture in the broadest sense: language, art, travel, politics, literature, food and wine, or other. No knowledge of Italian is required to enjoy its diverse programme of events. The annual subscription is £15 renewable each November (£23 for couples, £6 for students under 30, and £6 for members living more than 40 miles from Oxford). Further information, with an application form, is available from the Membership Secretary or downloadable from our website: toia.co.uk. The TOIA Magazine is sent to members three times a year.

THE OXFORDITALIANASSOCIATION

We are pleased to announce that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and CNH Industrial have generously agreed to sponsor your new-look TOIA Magazine.

WHO WE ARE:

CHAIR: Professor Martin McLaughlin, Magdalen College, Oxford OX1 4AU Email: martin.mclaughlin@magd.ox.ac.uk

VICE-CHAIR: Dott.ssa. Luciana John, 6 Chalfont Road, Oxford OX2 6TH Email: lrjohn@yahoo.co.uk

SECRETARY: Spencer Gray,Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DPEmail: toiasecretary@outlook.com

TREASURER & CURATOR OF THE ROWE TRUST: Dott.ssa. Luciana John, 6 Chalfont Road, Oxford OX2 6TH Email: lrjohn@yahoo.co.uk

MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY: Dott. Dante Ceruolo,University of Oxford Language Centre, 12 Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HTEmail: toiamembership@outlook.com

WEBSITE CONTACT: toia.co.uk/contact/

MAGAZINE CONTACT: toiamagazine@outlook.com

TOIA Events: at a glance1 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.

www.fcagroup.com www.cnhindustrial.com