Bruno Wanrooij, Director of the Villa Le Balze in Italy and Study Center President
Following the example of the philosopher Charles Augustus Strong, the first owner of the Villa, who turned his home into a meeting place for intellectuals and artists,the Center's main objective to further the contacts and the exchange of ideas between the American and Italian scholarly communities in the study of Italian civilization. The Center promotes research into various aspects of Italian history and culture from the Middle Ages to the Present, and, in doing so, seeks to integrate the research activities of the faculty at the Villa, members of the faculty on the Main Campus of Georgetown University, and scholars from Italian and European institutions, including the University of Florence.
From the long list of conferences promoted by the Center some key areas of interest emerge: the Anglo-American Community in Tuscany and the meeting of American and Italian culture and ways of life; the role of Catholicism in Italian civilization, and, more generally, the art and culture of early modern Italy. The most recent conferences were dedicated to the life and work of the Florentine humanist Giannozzo Manetti (1396-1459) and to Greek Poetry in Italy, the latter conference being organized in collaboration with the Classics Department of Georgetown University.
In 1998, the Italian government acknowledged the important contribution of the Villa to scholarly activities in Italy and approved the creation of a Center for the Study of Italian History and Culture, which had as its first president Professor Marcello Fantoni. The Study Center President collaborates with a Steering Committee composed of distinguished American and European scholars.
The publications of the Study Center (both books and issues of the journal) demonstrate similar focuses: the most recent issue of the Journal was dedicated to I Luoghi del Sacro, while the forthcoming volume edited by Giuseppe Galigani on the Encounter of Italian Culture and Literature in English collects the essays of a number of leading American and European scholars from Chaucer to Seamus Heaney on cultural exchanges. Finally, through the publication of the Italian translation of contemporary American studies – like John O'Malley's Trent and All That, edited by Marcello Fantoni – the Center seeks to advance collaboration and contacts between scholars working at both sides of the ocean.
In the near future the Study Center intends to further develop collaboration with Georgetown University faculty members who are doing research on Italy and to broaden its field of interest to more contemporary issues. Finally, the Center also seeks to strengthen its role in furthering cultural exchange between America and Italy by promoting the translation of the most important examples of Italian scholarly publications into English.
– Bruno Wanrooij