History
	NEXT EVENT If you are interested in Italy, its culture and politics you should join today.	A forum for lovers of Italy and Italian Culture Italian "Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, 'Italy'." Robert Browning When Mussolini took Italy into the war on Hitler's side in June 1940, those in the United Kingdom who knew and loved Italy were dismayed and at a loss as to what to do. In 1941, a group of British academics, journalists, broadcasters and former residents of Italy decided to form the Friends of Free Italy, echoing the "Friends of Italy" founded in London by Mazzini in 1851. The new group resolved to remind their countrymen of the true and immortal Italy which transcended the Axis regime with which the country was at war. Around the same time, a parallel group of Italians formed the Free Italy Committee which became the Movimento Libera Italia. Following internal dissension, the Movimento merged with the Friends and in 1945 became the British-Italian Society which it has remained ever since. Its aims and objects were redefined as being "to increase the understanding in Great Britain of Italian history, Italian institutions, the Italian way of life and the Italian contribution to civilisation, to increase the knowledge of the Italian language in Great Britain, and to encourage and promote the traditional friendship between Great Britain and Italy." The Society successfully sought the patronage of British and Italian diplomatic representatives and distinguished personages such as Professor Gilbert Murray, Harold Nicolson, Lord Rennell of Rodd and Sir Kenneth Clark. Its standing was demonstrated when it was consulted by the Rappresentanza Italiana, soon to become the new Italian Embassy, about the establishment of an Italian Cultural Institute in London. From the moment the Institute opened at 39 Belgrave Square in 1950, the Society has collaborated closely with it, as it has with successive Italian Ambassadors to the Court of St James whose support has been unwavering over the decades. By 1954, it seemed that the original purposes of the Society had been fulfilled. At a glittering Society dinner at Claridge's, the distinguished Italian Ambassador, Manlio Brosio, reflected the changing times: "…. is a British-Italian Society necessary? Because, if British-Italian relations are good, what is the use of such a society? And if they are bad, can it really hope to change them? ... the BIS has been extremely useful when our mutual relations were bad…. a small group of British and Italian people who refused to share either hatred or scorn or a spirit of vengeance and kept their faith in better days to come." The Society should develop and "keep good guard to watch and oppose new manifestations of old resentment and of ill will." In the succeeding 30 years, the BIS fulfilled this role through lectures, social meetings, brains trusts, visits, dinners, student dances, coffee mornings, Christmas Bazaars - even an informal dining club. The Society also contributed to various relief funds and charities in Italy, including relief to the North Italian floods in 1966 organised by the then BIS Chairman, Sir Ashley Clarke, who went on to found Venice in Peril (with which the Society continues to cooperate closely, sharing offices in Fulham). Its events were chronicled in the Society's bi-monthly magazine, Rivista, started in 1946 and continuing, with some difficulties, today. After 40 years, in 1981 the Society had again to ask itself the Brolio question. Had it outlived its usefulness? The reasons were obvious. The bilateral relationship was utterly transformed. Italy and Britain were fellow members of the EU, allies in NATO and cooperated closely in countless other international organisations. Cheap travel, books, media exchanges meant mass acquaintance with one another's countries on a scale never dreamed of even one short generation ago. As the distinguished historian, Professor John Hale, wrote, "events have marvellously connived to strengthen the political, personal and cultural links our founders were concerned to see re-forged after fascism and war." Yet the Society continued its work, under a succession of distinguished Chairmen and relying on the dedication and energy of people like Muriel Grindrod, the long-serving Editor of Rivista. Changing circumstances did not invalidate like-minded people planning functions which gave pleasure to themselves and to others without political pomp or ideological circumstances, in pursuit of "the oldest, fruitfullest and most deeply felt of all special relationships." The greatest challenge to British-Italian relations was identified as the remorseless squeezing of Italian teaching out of British schools and the consequential threat to Italian teaching in British Universities. In 2002, the Society was able to do something about it by using a generous personal bequest to inaugurate the Rooke Memorial Prizes for graduate and undergraduate Italian Studies. With more money, it could extend and develop this scheme. All this amounts to 63 years of unbroken endeavour of which the British-Italian Society can justly be proud. It is in the same spirit that, in its modest way, the Society faces the future. It will continue its activities, cooperating more and more closely with the 23 other bilateral EU Societies (including the Friends of Ireland), following the latest enlargement of the Union to take in many of the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe.       Monte Cassino
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