THE OXFORD ITALIAN ASSOCIATION - TOIAtoia.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/TOIA_Magazine_Michaelmas-17.pdf · THE OXFORD ITALIAN ASSOCIATION MICHAELMAS, 2017 ... as married to ‘Acchattabriga

THE OXFORDITALIANASSOCIATION

MICHAELMAS, 2017

TOIA MAGAZINE # 80

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THE FUTURE OF BRITISH-ITALIAN RELATIONS A LECTURE BY HMA JILL MORRIS, INTRODUCED BY THE RT HON THE LORD PATTEN OF BARNES, CHANCELLOR, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

Jill Morris, British Ambassador to Italy, will give her view on the current state of British-

Italian relations and the prospects for the future. In the wake of the Brexit Referendum in the UK and at a time of geopolitical and economic uncertainty throughout Europe, she is well placed to do so. From the Embassy at Porta Pia, the Ambassador has a unique perspective on developments in Italy and emerging policy in London, as well as having an important role to play in developing the bilateral relationship and overcoming challenges.

Morris has previously stressed the importance of good relations between the UK and Italy: “We are fortunate to enjoy deep and positive relations with Italy in almost every area, from science to security; and from foreign policy to food. As we seek to manage a period of profound geopolitical change, which includes Britain’s rethinking of its relationship with the EU, continuing to strengthen those relationships matters now more than ever. The UK fully intends to work closely with Italy on fighting terrorism, defence and security, migration and every aspect of foreign policy. The same is true in the economic

field: which is good news for the UK and for those wishing to do business in Italy. In this networked world, our fates are ever more intertwined: if Italy prospers, so does the UK – and vice versa.”

Jill Morris has been Ambassador to Italy and San Marino since July 2016. From 2012 to 2015, Jill served as Director for Europe in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. She had previously headed the Counter-Proliferation (2010-12) and Consular Strategy (2008-10) Departments. Earlier in her career she served in Brussels and Cyprus. Jill was

i Mordan Hall, St Hugh’s College, St Margaret’s Road, 7.30 p.m. drinks reception, 8.00 p.m. lecture, on Monday, 30 October, 2017 Entry: Members £2, non-members £5, students under 30 free of charge.

born in Chester and studied Modern Languages at Southampton (MA) and Warwick (MPhil) Universities. She joined the Diplomatic Service in 1999.

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

HMA Jill Morris on her first day as Ambassador to the Republic of Italy

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

Martin McLaughlin retires this autumn from his post as the Agnelli-Serena Professor of Italian at Oxford University, a post he has held since 2001. Oxford is very much his second home after Glasgow, where he was born and grew up. He studied Classics there but then came to Oxford to complete a second degree (in Italian and Classics), before embarking on a DPhil. He then went back to Scotland in 1977 as a lecturer in Italian at Edinburgh University, before returning to Oxford in 1990. On 5 June 2017, in a packed Taylorian Hall, he was presented with a volume of essays written in his honour by colleagues, friends and former pupils (plus one by Martin’s daughter, Mairi) and edited by two Oxford colleagues, Guido Bonsaver and Giuseppe Stellardi, and an old friend from Leeds University, Brian Richardson. Cultural Reception, Translation and Transformation from Medieval to Modern Italy is a substantial and tangible sign of how highly Martin is regarded academically.

Esteem and liking for Martin extends way beyond the academic community, as the sheer number of people in the Hall plainly showed. Martin and Cathy are very active presences in TOIA. He will continue to be its Chair, showing the same friendliness, attentiveness, commitment and good humour that he shows to undergraduates, post-graduates, however demanding they are, and to colleagues in Oxford, Scotland, Italy and the USA (to name the parts of the world Cathy and Martin are most connected with). In fact, they have always been great ambassadors for Italy and all things Italian, including wine and food as well as literature and culture.

Martin has also been a great ambassador for the humanities generally. His generosity of spirit has been repeatedly shown in the way he steps forward at moments of crisis. In his final term, when he might have been expected

to be concentrating on packing his books, he willingly became substitute chairman of the Modern Languages Faculty when a temporary but large gap suddenly yawned, and then also volunteered to give

a paper at the Oxford Dante Society when the invited speaker had to drop out at the last moment – the paper itself being a resounding success. He has always played a very important part in the research

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activities of the whole faculty, not least in his work for Legenda, which is in effect now the publishing arm of Oxford Modern Languages. Martin played a crucial role in bringing it back from the brink of extinction, when it was particularly under threat. The last piece in the Festschrift is by Graham Nelson, the managing editor of Legenda, who concludes the whole book by singling out Martin’s ‘conviction that the Humanities are not one but many, that they are a collective undertaking and that the well-spring of the Humanities is the willingness to participate.’

Martin’s academic work, which undoubtedly will not be stopped by retirement, centres on three areas which may look separate but which have always overlapped. First, there is the relationship between Italian Renaissance writing and thought, in Italian and in Latin, and classical literature. Here Martin’s publications have done an enormous

amount to revitalise the notion of imitation, which he sees not as a dull and pedantic business but instead as a creative reading of the past without which major masterpieces of the period could not have been written. Second, there is modern literature, especially the work of Italo Calvino. Martin’s book on Calvino is innovative, incisive and one of the critical books on Italian literature most read by students, to judge from the fact that there are 28 copies spread across Oxford libraries. And then there is his work as a translator, again specially of Calvino, for which he has rightly won wide acknowledgement and major literary awards. Martin is a modest person, and would never flaunt the honours he has rightly received, which include the marvellously sonorous title of ‘Commendatore dell’Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana’ which he was awarded by the President of Italy in 2008.

In many ways, Martin has continued the work of his immediate predecessor in the Agnelli-Serena chair, John Woodhouse, (who published the first book in English on Calvino in 1968), and of John’s predecessor, Cecil Grayson, who was Martin’s own supervisor as a DPhil student in the 1970s and was a distinguished editor of the Renaissance writer and architect, Leon Battista Alberti. Martin has played a major part in reshaping Alberti’s image, not least in making us see that he was a much more fun and intriguing writer than we used to think him.

Running through his work are the classical virtues of clarity, in-depth mastery of the field in terms of knowledge, and respect for the texts he writes about. Whatever he writes is highly readable and informative, as well as having the power to enthuse and inspire. But Martin also treats the text in question with respect and treats the reader of both that text and of what he himself has to say as an adult, who should not have a particular position imposed but who should with the help provided be able to make his or her mind up. As Dante said, addressing the reader in Paradiso 10, ‘Messo t’ò innanzi, omai per te ti ciba’. (I have set it before you, now feed on by yourself ). Martin has done an enormous amount to help readers of all sorts feed themselves.

Professor Martin McLaughlin

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MONA LISA: THE PEOPLE AND THE PAINTINGA LECTURE BY EMERITUS PROFESSOR MARTIN KEMP

The identity of Leonardo’s mother has, until now, been shrouded in mystery. As revealed in the book Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting by Professor Martin Kemp and Dr Giuseppe Pallanti, Leonardo’s mother can now be identified as 15-year-old orphan Caterina di Meo Lippi, who gave birth to Leonardo on 15 April, 1452.

There have been many theories regarding the identity of Leonardo’s mother, including that she was a slave of Eastern descent who was given the name Caterina. New research undertaken in the archives of Vinci show that in 1451, in a farmhouse under a mile from the town, there lived the 15-year-old Caterina di Meo, shedding light on Leonardo’s maternal family tree for the first time. Caterina lived with her infant brother Papo; they had lost their parents, and their grandmother had recently brought them to live in her house in the hamlet of Mattoni. Poor, vulnerable, and with no prospects, Caterina became pregnant by Ser Piero da Vinci during one of the ambitious young lawyer’s visits to his hometown in July 1451. Ser Piero was then forging a highly successful career in Florence.

An intricate web of evidence supports the identification of Caterina di Meo as Leonardo’s mother, including Antonio da Vinci’s tax return on 28 February 1458 which asserts that Leonardo, his five-year-old grandson, was still living with him while Leonardo’s mother is recorded as married to ‘Acchattabriga di Piero del Vaccha’ (Antonio di Piero Buti, a local farmer who the da Vinci family did indeed help secure as Caterina di Meo’s husband soon after Leonardo’s birth). A modest dowry would have been provided by Ser Piero to close the matter and leave him free to make a suitable marriage in Florence.

The following year, a daughter was born to Caterina and Antonio, the first of their five children.

Leonardo’s birth was publicly celebrated with his baptism on 16 April 1452. Prominent citizens were registered at the baptism as godparents and the baby was welcomed into the family – as was common with illegitimate children at that time – and he was brought up in the house of his grandfather, Antonio da Vinci.

Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting illuminates the true story of the Mona Lisa using previously undiscovered archival information about the families of both Leonardo da Vinci and Lisa del Giocondo, the subject of the portrait. Newly documented detail relating to the participants’ lives enable the authors to ground the Mona Lisa in reality, and develop a new theory of the Mona Lisa as a ‘universal picture’.

“In this book, we have concentrated on real people doing real things in real places at real times. Above all, we cut through the suppositions and the myths about Leonardo and his work to show that the Mona Lisa

portrait is a product of real people with ordinary lives. We sought to bring back a sense of reality into the creation of the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. Leonardo was doing extraordinary things, but the context that gave rise to the portrait was no

Emeritus Professor Martin Kemp

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less embedded in the daily business of life in Renaissance Florence than when Lisa’s husband, Francesco del Giocondo, imported leather from Ireland. It is from these human circumstances we can see that what began as a portrait assumes the guise of a ‘universal picture’, in which Leonardo strove for his ultimate remaking of human and natural worlds through his imagination,” explains Professor Martin Kemp.

Alongside the revelations about Leonardo’s mother and birthplace, the book includes a wealth of new information about the ambitious merchant who married into the old gentry of Lisa’s family; Lisa’s life as a wife and mother, her association with sexual scandals, and her later life in a convent; and the career and possessions of Leonardo’s father Ser Piero. It also features chapters on the meaning of the portrait illuminated through Renaissance love poetry; how Leonardo’s sciences of optics, psychology, anatomy and geology are embraced in his poetic science of art; and recent scientific examinations which disclose how the painting evolved to assume its present appearance in Leonardo’s experimental hands.

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

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

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

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HOW HUMAN WAS MUSSOLINI?A LECTURE BY PROFESSOR RICHARD BOSWORTH

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

Yet so long as the temptations of nostalgia and ‘wromance’ are held in check, the man and dictator, Benito Mussolini, can be seriously examined, in a process

Benito Mussolini

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Professor Richard Bosworth

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that can illuminate much about his Italy and about the nature of other dictators and dictatorships down to our own times. The examination is greatly enriched by the vast documentary evidence, only recently become fully available in the Archivio Centrale dello Stato, of the diary of his last lover, Claretta Petacci, and her linked family papers. It is this record that I have explored at some detail in my new book, Claretta: Mussolini’s Last Lover (Yale UP, 2017).

To take the second issue first, Mussolini was the pioneer modern dictator, certainly in a European setting. Yet, in almost all commentary, at least in the UK, his image is a mixture of clown and gangster. When we want to warn ourselves and the children about the wickedness (and disastrous cost) of dictatorship, then it is the German Führer, Adolf Hitler, who dominates our memory. To be sure the ghost of the Nazi chief is sometimes challenged by that of Joseph Stalin, at least in those circles where communism was long assumed to be the enemy and may still be viscerally feared. Yet it is regularly agreed that the Holocaust was, and is, the abyss in the history of humankind and that Hitler was, in his own mind, fanatically and ‘scientifically’ determined on it, aiming to kill not just the Jews who were in his or Germany’s way but every last Jew that racial pseudo-science could detect.

As a result, ‘bad guys’, like Saddam Hussein or Bashar al-Assad or Muammar Gaddafi, are often damned as ‘another Hitler’ (at least when some event has turned them into bad guys). Such title has major policy implications since ‘appeasement’ is another word with heavy historical cargo. Talk, it is frequently agreed, with fanatical dictators is pointless; they need to be overthrown and killed (as Hitler should have been well before 1939).

Yet, with Mussolini, the story is not so clear. My next book will be an account of how the Duce, from c 1932 to c 1938, turned in world opinion from a ruler whose governance of Italians had much to be said for it into a ‘gangster’ (the fastidious Anthony Eden’s term), a bad guy. To such major theme may be added the more domestic question of what we learn from Claretta about family, gender,

i Mordan Hall, St Hugh’s College, St Margaret’s Road, 7.30 p.m. drinks reception, 8.00 p.m. lecture and book signing, on Thursday, 26 October. Entry: Members £2, non-members £5, students under 30 free of charge.

influence and raccomandazioni issues where, quite a lot of the time, Mussolini did not fully fit theoreticians’ conclusions about him, Fascism and dictatorship. As I shall explain at greater length in my coming talk, whether my focus is at home or abroad, ‘Mussolini’s humanness’ is not quite an oxymoron; rather it can take us deep into Italian histories.

R. J. B. Bosworth is senior research fellow in history, Jesus College, Oxford. A renowned Italianist, he is the author of more than two dozen books on Mussolini, fascism, and Italy’s twentieth-century experience. He lives in Oxford, UK. His most recent publication, Claretta: Mussolini’s Last Lover, received exceptional reviews:

‘A brilliant insight into Mussolini’s relationship with his most persistent and devoted lover.’ David Laven, author of Venice and Venetia under the Habsburgs.

‘Picking his way between myths, half-truths and downright lies, Richard Bosworth has brilliantly documented the realities of the sordid and sometimes turbulent relationship between Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci.’ John Pollard, University of Cambridge, author of The Papacy in the Age of Totalitarianism, 1914-1958

‘By taking us deep into this private world, this important book illuminates the inner

workings of the fascist regime and gives a better insight into Mussolini than any other political biography ever could.’ Stephen Gundle, author of Mussolini’s Dream Factory: Film Stardom in Fascist Italy

Clara Petacci

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THE DOROTHY ROWE MEMORIAL LECTUREGIAMBATTISTA VICO AND THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONSA LECTURE BY PROFESSOR GIROLAMO IMBRUGLIA IN COMMEMORATION OF DENIS MACK SMITH

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This year’s Rowe Memorial Lecture will be given by Professor Girolamo Imbruglia, commemorating the death of Denis Mack Smith, whose obituary appears below.

Girolamo Imbruglia is Professor of Modern History at the University of Naples l’Orientale. He has published numerous monographs, and articles on meta-historiography and the European culture of the Enlightenment and will be lecturing on Vico, the political philosopher and rhetorician, historian and jurist of the Age of Enlightenment. For full details and an abstract please visit www.toia.co.uk

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

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

The death on 11 July 2017 of Denis Mack Smith left a great void in the ranks of Oxford University and deprived historical studies in both Britain and Italy of another academic Olympian. For fifty years, Denis Mack Smith’s research on the history of post-unification Italy made him the world-renowned authority on the topic. After graduation from Cambridge, where, as a schoolboy entrant he had won an organ scholarship at Peterhouse, he travelled to Italy for the first time in 1946, trusting to his brief acquaintance with the language. At the time, in both Britain and Italy, myths still abounded concerning the Risorgimento,

Italy’s heroic struggle for nationhood, inspired and driven by the triumvirate of Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini. Few questioned those heroic myths before Denis added a note of historical reality, when, without losing his admiration for the finer points of those three heroes, he injected more than a pinch of scepticism and reality concerning their diverse motivations and the condition in which they left the united realm.

First impressions of his chosen destination might have seemed something of a disillusionment for the young graduate. In 1946 Italy was divided politically and

OBITUARY OF DENIS MACK SMITH

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

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Statue of Ovid in Sulmona

socially, a defeated, exhausted country, its territory ruined by the ravages of WW2, lacking a recognisable government, its former leader assassinated, its monarchy abolished by a popular referendum, its royal family forced into exile after the abdication of King Victor Emanuel III (and of his son, Umberto, in May 1946, king for just 34 days). What had happened to the dreams and high ideals of the early Risorgimento?

During that first year, however, Denis also made the acquaintance of Benedetto Croce, Italy’s most respected liberal intellectual, and a declared authority on the early history of Italy’s unification. In Naples Croce had the world’s most comprehensive library on the subject, and Denis was given free access (during the hours of darkness only!) to the philosopher’s house and library. In 1924, even the professedly liberal Croce had given his vote to Mussolini following the violent elections of that year, and, in one interview had suggested that Italy was an invalid, needing the strong medicine of fascism, and that it could only harm the patient to withdraw the treatment prematurely. Croce considered fascism as a blip in the development of the nation’s history. Denis and he had friendly discussions, but Denis was strong in his opinion that the explanation for Italy’s subsequent chaotic politics lay in the political rivalries of the previous century. Croce’s was another point of view due for revision.

Denis returned to tutorial and other duties at his old Cambridge college (1947-62), where he remained until his election as Senior Research Fellow at All Souls (1962-87), followed by an Extraordinary Fellowship at Wolfson College (Oxford) (1987-2000). He was awarded many honours and prizes, too many to list here, but it is typical of the man that two honours which head his glory list in Who’s Who were his titles as Public Orator of the Republic of San Marino and Honorary Citizen of Santa Margherita Ligure, along with his membership of America’s Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He set out to investigate the myths and motives of the Risorgimento in his first book, Cavour and Garibaldi: 1860, published in 1954. His portrait of the courageous and self-sacrificing patriot, Garibaldi, physically fighting to unite Italy, contrasted with the cunning political

manipulator, Cavour, admired by Denis for his intelligence and extraordinary diplomatic skills, but deplored for his much narrower concern with the greater glory of his native province (a precedent for the Lega Nord per l’indipendenza della Padania). At first, Denis was treated summarily by Italian historians. One polemical encounter with Renzo De Felice, author of a biography of Mussolini in 8 volumes, ended in a heated television debate between the two, while Rosario Romeo, a celebrated historian of the achievements of Cavour, another of his targets, went so far as to refuse to shake Denis’s hand. Denis gave as good as he got, and, unafraid to modify his scepticism concerning Italy’s immediate past, he went on to write a crushing review of De Felice’s 6,000-word biography. “Not an easy read”, Denis observed as an opening to his review. It is worth noting that Denis himself wrote in an impeccably clear style and that his prose was invariably enlivened with episodes which exposed the folly or inconsistency of his influential Italian adversaries whose language was sometimes disjointed and often pedantic.

He went on to write some fifty important works on the political effects of the Risorgimento during the period up to 1998. In the street markets of Rome and Naples, he noted the vast number of books, published during Mussolini’s dictatorship, which disillusioned citizens were throwing away in disgust. Shrewdly, Denis acquired many volumes cheaply from those book stalls and sent them back to England. His 1958 volume Italy: A Modern History, revised and reprinted in 1997 with its Italian version Storia d’Italia dal 1861 al 1997, ran into print runs of over 150,000 copies in Italy and formed the standard history of the country for many right-thinking people, who preferred the unbiased approach they associated with his English scholarship, and kept a Mack Smith on their bookshelf. In this way Denis did much more than inform his readership about the truth of their history. He also, for a while at least, convinced some to make more rational general judgements about their country’s future.

His career took him from tutorial and other duties at his old Cambridge college, Peterhouse (1947-62), to his election as Senior Research Fellow at All Souls

(1962-87), followed by an extraordinary Fellowship of Wolfson College, Oxford (1987-2000). He was awarded many honours, including Italy’s highest civic honour, nomination as Italy’s Grande Ufficiale dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica. For many years following 1957, he was Chairman of the Oxford Association for the Study of Modern Italy, and supported with his friendly presence the thriving Oxford Italian Association (TOIA), where in his initial Rowe lecture he spoke on Italy 1998: Has anything changed? On that occasion, more than 150 people crammed into the largest room in the Examination Schools to hear him speak, and, as ever, he did not disappoint. His talk stressed his admiration for Italy’s improvements in such fields as education and literacy, language and communication, commerce and industry. These improvements were offset, he felt by the unstable quality of Italian governments, the corruption of governing groups, and the inherent weakness of the system of proportional representation which had produced over a hundred warring parties in its first years. Most of those political and social faults he could trace back to the earlier years of the twentieth century.

He died peacefully at home on 11 July leaving his wife Catherine, his two daughters and four grandchildren.

Professor John Woodhouse

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For readers interested in contemporary Italian literature and what to discover next in their trajectory of reading, Dr Franca Pellegrini, a close friend of the Association, recently resident in Oxford, suggests Paolo Cognetti’s Le Otto Montagne, winner of the Strega Prize.

Sembra un uomo d’altri tempi Paolo Cognetti, nella foto in bianco e nero che lo ritrae alla consegna del Premio Strega: barba e capelli fulvi, un po’ incolti, e quel fiocco da pittore annodato alla bohémienne, sotto la lavagna dove ancora in modo antico si contano i voti del Premio.

Nato a Milano nel 1978, Paolo Cognetti come scrittore ha cominciato a pubblicare con la casa editrice minimum fax nel 2004 con Manuale per ragazze di successo, ma questo riconoscimento del romanzo Le otto montagne, edito per Einaudi nel 2016, lo porta alla ribalta del grande pubblico e alla piena legittimazione della critica. Cognetti, infatti, ha vinto la settantunesima edizione del Premio Strega nel magnifico scenario di Villa Giulia a Roma.

Il Premio prende avvio nel 1947 da un’iniziativa di Maria e Goffredo Bellonci, patrocinato da Guido Alberti, produttore del Liquore Strega, da cui il nome. Siamo nell’immediato dopoguerra, e dopo vent’anni di fascismo l’Italia della cultura fra mille incertezze s’interroga sul futuro di un Paese devastato dalla guerra e dalle divisioni. L’istituzione del Premio letterario Strega è un modo per riprendere il confronto fra scrittori, per farsi conoscere e riconoscere. Vince la prima edizione, nel 1947, Ennio Flaiano con Tempo di uccidere. Nomi illustri della letteratura italiana contemporanea hanno in seguito ricevuto il Premio: da Elsa Morante nel 1957 con L’isola di Arturo al Gattopardo di Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa nel 1959 a Primo Levi con La chiave a stella nel 1979 e Umberto Eco con Il nome della rosa nel 1981, solo per citarne alcuni. E il Premio Strega è ancora oggi il più importante riconoscimento in Italia per uno scrittore di narrativa.

Il luogo della manifestazione è la splendida Villa Giulia a Roma. Appena fuori dalle mure aureliane, facile da raggiungere dalla vicina Piazza del Popolo, Villa Giulia rimane appartata in una sorta di valletta. Fu fatta costruire da papa Giulio III, al secolo Vincenzo Ciocchi del Monte, nel XVI secolo, e da lui prende il nome. Sembra essere stato Giorgio Vasari il primo a progettarla, ma la realizzazione fu opera di numerosi artisti dell’epoca.

Il set del Premio Strega è il Ninfeo della Villa, posizionato nella parte posteriore, dove si può ammirare la grande loggia dell’Ammanati, con scale laterali che conducono alla parte sottostante fra statue e decorazioni che contornano la fontana centrale, opera di Vasari e Ammanati.

Nel tempo, l’edificio ha cambiato proprietari e uso fino al 1870, quando divenne patrimonio del Regno d’Italia e fu destinato ad area museale. Oggi la Villa ospita il Museo nazionale etrusco fondato nel 1889 e, oltre a numerosi reperti di grande interesse archeologico, vi si può ammirare il famoso Sarcofago degli sposi.

L’ITALIA DELLE MONTAGNE NEL ROMANZO DI PAOLO COGNETTILE OTTO MONTAGNE, EINAUDI, TORINO, 2016

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Paolo Cognetti

The Nymphaeum of Villa Giulia

Etruscan, Sarcophagus of the Spouses

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In questo scenario, Le otto montagne di Paolo Cognetti è risultato vincitore dell’edizione 2017. Il romanzo, che ha come baricentro la montagna, racconta la vita di Pietro e della sua famiglia divisa fra la grande città, Milano, e l’esperienza della montagna. Un romanzo di formazione, si potrebbe definire, che tocca corde molto attuali e lo fa in un modo leggero, profondo, e allo stesso tempo inconsueto. Centro fisico e ideale del romanzo è la località di Grana, provincia di Asti, in Piemonte, piccolo borgo dimenticato dalla civiltà, rimasto a lungo incontaminato, e al di fuori del circuito turistico.

La storia prende avvio alla fine degli anni Settanta per chiudersi ai giorni nostri, nel 2014. Pietro è un bambino che trascorre le vacanze estive in una remota casetta insieme alla madre e al padre, amanti della montagna. Il dramma familiare che i genitori nascondono al ragazzo saranno resi noti solo alla fine del libro. Il rapporto irrisolto padre-figlio percorre l’intera storia e scandisce i tempi del racconto. L’atmosfera descritta è avvolgente, si seguono la crescita e le scoperte del ragazzo che si confronta con una realtà umana e paesaggistica nuova rispetto alla sua esperienza cittadina. L’attrazione per quel tipo di vita è accresciuta dall’incontro con Bruno, un giovane che vive tutto l’anno in quei luoghi e che scambia la sua esperienza con quella cittadina di Pietro: complementarietà che accompagnerà i due amici per tutto il loro percorso di vita. Nella rievocazione del tempo e dei luoghi, sullo sfondo della vicenda sta l’Italia con il suo sviluppo a diverse velocità, ritratta in tutte le

sue contraddizioni paesaggistiche e umane. Sembra, in quel paesino di Grana fra i monti del Piemonte, di tornare indietro nel tempo: un mondo fermo nella sua meravigliosa cornice, fra una vaga speranza di progresso e una ferma volontà di conservare un mondo incontaminato.

Il titolo è dettato dall’incontro che Pietro fa durante il suo viaggio in Nepal, alla ricerca delle grandi montagne, con un vecchio del luogo che gli spiega come è fatto il mondo secondo la loro visione: “Noi diciamo che al centro del mondo c’è un monte altissimo, il Sumeru. Intorno al Sumeru ci sono otto montagne e otto mari. Questo è il mondo per noi.” (p. 138)

Così anche per il protagonista il centro del mondo diviene la montagna e la casa, sarebbe meglio dire la barma, che insieme all’amico Bruno decide di costruire ai confini di una terra che inizia e finisce nelle spettacolari visioni dei paesaggi montani. Nel romanzo la natura si concretizza, non è mera cornice alla vita dei protagonisti, ma è protagonista essa stessa. Diviene parte intima e allo stesso tempo reale dell’esistenza, come afferma Bruno: “Siete voi di città che la

chiamate natura. È così astratta nella vostra testa che è astratto pure il nome. Noi qui diciamo bosco, pascolo, torrente, roccia, cose che uno può indicare con il dito.” (p. 140)

Cognetti pennella con tratti leggeri ma intensi il Monte Rosa, il Grenon, le Tre Cime di Lavaredo nella loro spettacolarità, sempre riportandole attraverso la sua esperienza diretta, guardandole da fuori e da dentro: i paurosi crepacci, le suggestive lingue di ghiaccio, le dure asperità e le dolci vallate verdeggianti. Il ritorno alla vita primitiva dell’omo servadzo è parte della vita di Pietro, ma soprattutto di Bruno, che tenta di staccarsi dal proprio destino per intraprendere un’altra vita con una famiglia e un piccolo allevamento, ma Bruno fallisce nel suo progetto ed è costretto a riprendere in solitaria la via della montagna. Pietro invece va e viene, viaggia alla ricerca di sé fino al Nepal e insegue le risposte alle domande irrisolte della vita, per poi tornare sempre sui propri passi. La quête accomuna i due ragazzi, divenuti uomini, che tentano di trovare risposta alle contraddizioni dell’esistenza nella solitudine della natura.

Lo stile del romanzo sembra muovere in principio dalla forma diaristica con la narrazione della vita di Pietro, ma in realtà è un resoconto intimo, con frequenti salti temporali, e si configura come il racconto di un’anima in fuga dalla civiltà e in cerca di un ritorno alle origini per una ricomposizione. Questa scelta narrativa rende la lettura a tratti distesa, a tratti ripida come una parete alpina, e dimostra la capacità dell’autore di condurre il lettore sui sentieri alpini, senza mai eccedere nella misura delle descrizioni paesaggistiche, rendendo l’andamento ora morbido e accogliente, ora drammatico e terribile. Si segue il protagonista nel suo percorso di formazione e se ne percepisce la veridicità del tratto. La lingua usata rispecchia l’andamento del contenuto, un italiano di oggi, senza strappi con la tradizione e senza concessioni, se non per qualche intarsio lessicale, al dialetto.

È dunque un romanzo Le otto montagne che mette al centro della narrazione il rapporto con se stessi e con gli altri nella meditazione del silenzio dei monti, ancora incontaminati, ed ha il merito di rivelare un aspetto centrale nella cultura italiana: quello della montagna, attraverso il legame indissolubile uomo-natura, che non sempre oggi siamo abituati a considerare parte viva della nostra esistenza.

Grana, Italy

Monte Rosa

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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: [email protected]

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 [email protected]

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 [email protected]

CLASSIFIEDS

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PIUMA

After making a name for himself with The First on the List – depicting two high-school students’ incredible escape in the 1970s owing to an imminent and unlikely coup d’état – and after portraying the bittersweet trials and tribulations of a group of university students in Fino a qui tutto bene, Roan Johnson tells a tale about youngsters in Piuma (lit. “Feather”).

The London-born director, who grew up in Pisa, makes use of the ironic and laid-back undertones of comedy, pitting two generations against each other: on one hand, children on the verge of the rite of passage from carefree adolescence to the complexity of the adult world; and on the other, parents struggling with the nigh-on impossible task of understanding and providing guidance.

Indeed, Piuma tells the story of Ferro (Luigi Fedele) and Cate (Blu Yoshimi), two adolescents trying to get to grips with an unplanned pregnancy, their families (rebellious Ferro’s hospitable, “normal” family, and level-headed Cate’s unhinged, atypical one), exams at school, friends and a general lack of jobs. The two lead characters are about to go through the most exciting and complicated nine months of their lives, all the while trying to hold on to their purity and their poetic point of view that makes them so special.

98 minutes Italian with Italian subtitles

TOIA MAGAZINE # 80

POETRY MATTERS

Eugenio Montale was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator, and recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize for Literature. He is widely considered to be the greatest Italian lyric poet since Giacomo Leopardi.

Meriggiare pallido e assortopresso un rovente muro d’orto,ascoltare tra i pruni e gli sterpischiocchi di merli, frusci di serpi.

Nelle crepe dei suolo o su la vecciaspiar le file di rosse formichech’ora si rompono ed ora s’intreccianoa sommo di minuscole biche.

Osservare tra frondi il palpitarelontano di scaglie di marementre si levano tremuli scricchidi cicale dai calvi picchi.

E andando nel sole che abbagliasentire con triste meravigliacom’è tutta la vita e il suo travaglioin questo seguitare una muragliache ha in cima cocci aguzzi di bottiglia.

i Film screening at Mordan Hall, St Hugh’s College, St Margaret’s Road, Oxford, Friday, 10 November, 7.30 p.m. In Italian accompanied by Italian subtitles. All welcome. £2 donation suggested.

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

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Come to celebrate the onset of the festive season in like-minded company. The AGM will afford us the chance to reflect back, Janus-like, on last year’s programme and to look forward to the coming year. It is an opportunity to meet up informally with other members and to put forward ideas for the future of the Association and our activities. Suggestions for speakers and activities are invited to keep the programme fresh, dynamic and relevant. In addition, all members are welcome to propose Committee members or to put themselves forward. Proceedings are short and to mark the approach of the festivities panettone and spumante will be served.

i Christmas Party and AGM, St Margaret’s Institute, 30 Polstead Road, Oxford, on Tuesday, 5 December, 2017, 7.45 for 8.00 p.m. Members only.

EVENT:

CHRISTMAS PARTY & AGM

TOIA MAGAZINE # 80

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 on from the Membership Secretary or downloadable from our website: www.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: [email protected]

VICE-CHAIR: Dott.ssa. Luciana John, 6 Chalfont Road, Oxford OX2 6TH Email: [email protected]

SECRETARY: Spencer Gray,Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DPEmail: [email protected]

TREASURER & CURATOR OF THE ROWE TRUST: Dott.ssa. Luciana John, 6 Chalfont Road, Oxford OX2 6TH Email: [email protected]

MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY: Dott. Dante Ceruolo,University of Oxford Language Centre, 12 Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HTEmail: [email protected]

WEBSITE CONTACT: http://toia.co.uk/contact/

MAGAZINE CONTACT: [email protected]

TOIA Events: at a glance

16 October Lecture, Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting, Professor Martin Kemp,

Main Conference Room, Oxford University Press, 6.30 p.m.

26 October Lecture, How human was Mussolini?, Professor Richard Bosworth,

Mordan Hall, St. Hugh’s College, 7.30 for 8.00 p.m.

30 October Lecture, The Future of British-Italian Relations, HMA Jill Morris, British Ambassador to the Republic of Italy,

Mordan Hall, St. Hugh’s College, 7.30 for 8.00 p.m.

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

21 November The Dorothy Rowe Memorial Lecture, Giambattista Vico and the History of Religions,

Professor Girolamo Imbruglia, The Grove Lecture Theatre, Magdalen College, 5.00 p.m.

5 December Annual General Meeting and Christmas Party, St. Margaret’s Institute,

Polstead Road, Oxford, 7.45 p.m. TOIA members only.

www.fcagroup.com www.cnhindustrial.com