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Deatails and bookings for this event will be avaiable at a later date.
A description of this talk will be available soon.
John Foot is Professor of Modern Italian History at the University of Bristol. He is the author of numerous books on Italian history and culture, including Calcio: A History of Italian Football (2006); Italy’s Divided Memory (2009); The Man Who Closed the Asylums; Franco Basaglia and the Revolution in Mental Health Care (2015); and The Archipelago: Italy since 1945 (2018). He is currently working on a history of Italian fascism to be published by Bloomsbury and Laterza and funded as a Major Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust.
A JOINT EVENT WITH VENICE IN PERIL FUND
On 14 July 1902 the famous bell-tower of St Mark, the city’s totemic symbol, collapsed into a pile of rubble, crushing Sansovino’s sixteenth-century Loggetta beneath it and narrowly missing the slender columns of the Basilica. News of the disaster flashed by telegram round the world, and the shock and distress felt by Venetians at the sudden loss of their landmark bell-tower was intense. After an immediate decision by the town council that the Campanile would be rebuilt exactly as it was and where it was, the work of recovery, planning and rebuilding took ten years. Sarah Quill tells the story in this illustrated lecture.
Sarah Quill has worked between Venice and London since the 1970s, building up an extensive photographic archive of Venetian architecture, sculpture and daily life. Her book, Ruskin’s Venice: The Stones Revisited was published in 2000, followed by a new and extended edition in 2015, which has recently been translated into Italian. She lectures regularly, principally on Venetian subjects, and is a trustee of the Venice in Peril Fund.
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THE TALK WILL BE FOLLOWED BY A DRINKS RECEPTION
PLEASE NOTE: Doors will open at 6:30pm
DISCLOSURE: By participating in a BIS webinar or live event you automatically agree to authorise recording of audio and visual content during the event and consent to subsequent use of the recording in the public domain. This recording may include questions, comments and poll responses provided by you during the event in addition to your name, voice, image or likeness. This recording will be made available after the conclusion of the live event as part of the BIS webinar archives, and will remain available indefinitely. If you do not wish to consent to the recording, please do not join the event or contact us to discuss your concerns.
Chaucer’s life was eventful – not only historically (after all, he was born into the aftermath of the Hundred Years’ War and lived through the Black Death) but also geographically. This giant of English writing enjoyed many international sojourns, and one part of Europe influenced his work like no other: Italy. Tracing Chaucer’s journeys and his links to destinations such as Florence, Certaldo, Arqua, Pavia, and Milan, Richard Owen introduces us to the princes, knights, and authors in whose circles Chaucer mixed, and he pinpoints how Chaucer’s Italian influences became manifest in his Canterbury Tales. Owen’s illuminating new account leaves no doubt that, without the influence of Italian luminaries such as Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio, the English canon ‘fathered’ by Chaucer would never have existed as we know it.
Richard Owen observed the international scene for thirty years as a foreign correspondent in Moscow, Brussels, Jerusalem and Rome for The Times of London. His publications include Crisis in the Kremlin, Soviet Succession and the Rise of Gorbachov; Letters from Moscow; The Times Guide to the Single European Market; The Times Guide to World Organisations; and three volumes in the Armchair Traveller series, Lady Chatterley’s Villa (issued in paperback in 2020 as DH Lawrence in Italy), Hemingway in Italy (published in Italian in 2017 as Hemingway e l’Italia), and Chaucer’s Italy, issued in 2022. He joined the BBC in 1973, working in the Overseas Service and subsequently in BBC Television current affairs before joining The Times in 1980 as an editorial leader writer.
Giulio Boccaletti will present his latest work, a revelatory history of how humanity’s relationship to moving water has shaped civilization, transformed political institutions, and defined people’s lives and still shapes today’s politics and economics.
Giulio Boccaletti is a globally recognized expert on natural resource security and environmental sustainability. He is an honorary research associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford. Trained as a physicist and climate scientist, he holds a doctorate from Princeton University, where he was a NASA Earth Systems Science Fellow. He has been a research scientist at MIT and was a partner at McKinsey & Company, where he was one of the leaders of its Sustainability and Resource Productivity Practice, and the chief strategy officer and global ambassador for water at The Nature Conservancy, one of the world’s largest environmental organizations. Boccaletti frequently writes on environmental issues for the news media, including Project Syndicate and The Guardian, and is an expert contributor to the World Economic Forum.
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THE TALK WILL BE FOLLOWED BY A DRINKS RECEPTION
Photo credit: Andrea Mattiello
DISCLOSURE: By participating in a BIS webinar or live event you automatically agree to authorise recording of audio and visual content during the event and consent to subsequent use of the recording in the public domain. This recording may include questions, comments and poll responses provided by you during the event in addition to your name, voice, image or likeness. This recording will be made available after the conclusion of the live event as part of the BIS webinar archives, and will remain available indefinitely. If you do not wish to consent to the recording, please do not join the event or contact us to discuss your concerns.
Since it was founded in 1941, the British-Italian Society has worked to promote knowledge and understanding in the UK of Italian culture, including Italy’s history, institutions, way of life, language and wider contribution to civilisation.
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