La Dolce Vita is one of the most famous films ever made, a scandalous hit that gave the world not only the phrase and idea of its title but also the term paparazzi. It is a film about gossip and news that was itself news, and is based in the news stories, fashionable people and actual fashions of its time. This talk looks at this whole process, the real and fictional images of Rome, which La Dolce Vita draws on, the way it relates to neo-realist cinema in its use of non-actors, location, shooting and episodic structures, and the way that it transmutes them into symbol and spectacle. La Dolce Vita is rooted in the real, and yet refuses to present itself as realist, always conscious of the way the media constructs our perception of reality.
Richard Dyer studied French at St Andrews and Cultural Studies at Birmingham Universities. He taught Film Studies at Warwick University and King’s College, London. He has been a visiting scholar in Antwerp, Bergamo, Chicago, Copenhagen, Naples, Melbourne, New York, Salerno, Stanford, Stockholm, Vienna, Weimar and Zürich, and has lectured widely. His books include Stars, Only Entertainment, White, The Culture of Queers, Pastiche, Nino Rota and La Dolce Vita. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and has received honours from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, University of Turku, Harvard University and the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies.
Drinks will be offered after the talk.
We will not be able to give refunds for cancellation later than 48 hours before the event
Photo: Dr. Christopher Thorpe, Exeter University
What have the Italians ever done for us?
Italy, Culture and Representation: Lessons from the Past for Imagining Britain’s Future, a talk by Dr Christopher Thorpe
The history of British representations of Italy, and appropriations of Italian culture, is a rich and enduring one. From Shakespeare’s use of Italy as a metaphor for addressing the social and political issues of the day, the aristocratic grand tourists of the 18th century, the centrality of Italian models for architects and painters such as Wren and Turner through to the 21st century tourists and travel writers who quit Britain for Chiantishire, Italy has meant very different things to different groups at different times, albeit in ways that demonstrate underlying and recurrent patterns. This lecture draws on cultural sociological ideas and ways of thinking to critically reconsider these patterns, the questions leading out from them and what this means for Anglo-Italian cultural relations today. The questions are as follows. Why have Italy and the Italians been understood and represented in such wide-ranging and often contradictory ways over time? How have representations of Italy and the Italians informed British cultural identity? And what can the history of British representations of the peninsula and its people tell us about Britain’s relationship to Europe more generally today?
Dr Christopher Thorpe is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Exeter. As an undergraduate student he spent his summers ‘working’ on a campsite at Lake Garda. His research interests concern the sociological analysis of culture generally, and the history of Anglo-Italian inter-cultural exchange specifically. His forthcoming book, published by Routledge, is a cultural sociological analysis of British representations of Italy from the English Renaissance to the present day.
We have decided to name our June lecture each year in honour of our former Chairman (2005-15), who passed away in April 2018. This will be the first Charles de Chassiron Memorial Lecture.
The talk will begin (following a short pause after the AGM) at 7 pm
Drinks will be offered after the talk
Members who wish to attend the AGM at 6.30pm, but not stay for the lecture at 7pm, are not required to pay a fee or book online. But they are requested to contact the Secretary by e-mail or telephone to confirm their place.
AGM Papers will be distributed separately
Visit to
Strawberry Hill House
Our visit will begin promptly at 2.30 pm. Please arrive by 2.15
A 90 – minute guided tour of the house will be followed by coffee/tea, biscuits and cake.
Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill House is the earliest and finest example of Gothic Revival architecture and interior decoration in Britain. Walpole developed the eccentric style (which was also used, a century later, for the Houses of Parliament) as a reaction against classicism and Palladian architecture. He had just returned from an inspirational grand tour of Italy, during which he had acquired many objets d’art.
Walpole, son of Britain’s first Prime Minister, was a writer and author of the gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto. He built the house partly to house his vast collection of paintings, books, antiquities, furniture and ceramics. One room, the Tribune, is named after the Tribune in the Uffizi Palace in Florence. Sadly, Walpole’s collection was sold and dispersed in 1842. Some of it has been reassembled in the United States; but a few items have been re-acquired or reproduced and restored to the house. The building itself, and most rooms, have recently been fully restored to look exactly as they would have done in the Georgian period, when Walpole died in 1797.
Twickenham was extremely fashionable in the 18th Century, occupying a point on the Thames half-way between the royal palaces at Richmond and Hampton Court. The town attracted many writers and artists, including Alexander Pope, whose villa was only 200 yards away from Strawberry Hill.
Silvia Davoli, Research Curator at Strawberry Hill, will act as our guide.
Please book by May 1st
DIRECTIONS TO STRAWBERRY HILL
By Train:
– to Strawberry Hill station. Two trains per hour in each direction on a circular route from London Waterloo via Richmond or Kingston/Wimbledon. The house is a five to ten minute walk from Strawberry Hill station. Follow the signs at the end of each platform.
– to Richmond (by South Western trains, District Line or London Overground). Then catch an R68 (Kew to Hampton Court) bus outside the station – or a 33 (Kew to Fulwell) bus from Richmond Bus Station. Alight at Michelham Gardens (R68) or Waldegrave Road (33).
By Car:
There is a free car park at the house.
The Thames Path is only three minutes away from the house. A pleasant riverside walk can be combined with an afternoon visit to Walpole’s fantasy villa.
We regret that we will not be able to give refunds for cancellation after 7 May
New England heiress Marguerite Chapin Caetani, the ‘American Princess’ of biographer Laurie Dennett’s recent book (Mcgill-Queen’s University Press, 2016), was one of the twentieth century’s pioneering literary owner-editors. In Paris during the 1920s, she used her personal fortune to produce the modernist review Commerce, convinced that access to good writing was not an option or a luxury, but a social necessity. Marriage to the Italian composer Prince Roffredo Caetani in 1911 made Italy her adopted country, and from 1932 until her death in 1963 she resided there. Serious gardening at the Caetani estate of Ninfa provided a refuge from fascism, and she was thus able to make a lasting contribution to one of Italy’s most outstanding gardens. Her greatest achievement, however, was the international review Botteghe Oscure, begun in 1948 to provide a forum for young Italian writers in the aftermath of fascism and war. During the next 12 years Marguerite Caetani went on to fund and publish the work of more than 600 writers in a dozen languages, ensuring that Botteghe Oscure played its part in creating the international literary community we enjoy today.
Laurie Dennett: Born in Toronto, Canada, Laurie Dennett has spent much of her professional writing life in the City of London. She is the author of eight corporate histories, including those of Prudential, the Institute of Actuaries, and law firm Slaughter and May.
She raised nearly $500,000 internationally for multiple sclerosis research through her pilgrimages on foot to Santiago de Compostela, Rome and Jerusalem, and wrote a travel book, A Hug For The Apostle (Macmillan of Canada, 1987) about her walk from Chartres to Santiago. From 1995 to 2003 she chaired Britain´s Confraternity of Saint James.
She has also translated several Camino-related books from Spanish. She lives in the province of Lugo, Galicia, where she continues to write and translate, and to welcome visitors to the first and only Quiet Garden (affiliated with the U.K.-based Quiet Gardens Trust) in Spain.
Book Review from Jay Parini, Axinn Professor of English, Middlebury College, USA
I have just finished reading Laurie Dennett’s life of Marguerite Chapin Caetani. I have read other work by Ms. Dennett, and I knew something of Caetani, being a long admirer of her great work as editor of Botteghe Oscure and, some years ago, a visitor to her estate at Ninfa. But I was unprepared to read such an engrossing biography, one that combines a wonderful literary range with deep and original research. In addition, it’s a biography that has the narrative momentum of a good novel…
…This is a brilliant and vibrant biography that left me deeply moved as I finished the last chapter, where Dennett considers the legacy of Marguerite. It’s a remarkable story, well told, beautifully conceived, and rich with learning. Dennett knows her stuff, and she writes clear, swift prose that nicely suits her subject. Her tone — one of quiet respect — never falters.
Drinks reception will follow the talk
We will not be able to give refunds for cancellation later than 48 hours before the event
Ernest Hemingway is most often associated with Spain, Cuba, and Florida; but Italy was equally important in his life and work. Richard Owen’s book, Hemingway in Italy, the first full-length study on the subject, explores Hemingway’s visits throughout his life to such places as Sicily, Genoa, Rapallo, Cortina and Venice.
Richard Owen describes how Hemingway first visited Italy during World War I, an experience that set the scene for A Farewell to Arms, and how he then returned after World War II, when he found inspiration for Across the River and into the Trees. Showing how the Italian landscape, from the Venetian lagoon to the Dolomites and beyond, deeply affected one of the greatest writers of the Twentieth Century, Hemingway in Italy demonstrates that this country belongs alongside Spain as a key influence on his writing—and why the Italian themselves took Hemingway and his writing to heart.
Richard Owen was the Rome correspondent of the Times for 15 years. He was previously the paper’s correspondent in Moscow, Brussels and Jerusalem, and also served as Foreign Editor. Richard Owen has written several works of non-fiction including Crisis in the Kremlin: Soviet Succession and the Rise of Gorbachov, Letters from Moscow and Lady Chatterley’s Villa: DH Lawrence on the Italian Riviera.
Drinks will be served after the talk
PLEASE NOTE NEW VENUE
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.
The British-Italian Society
86-90 Paul Street
London EC2A 4NE