No open-access location is known for this record yet.
No open-access location is known for this record yet.
Cesare Foligno, honorary member of the Society for Italian Studies, co-founder and editor of the periodical Italian Studies, one-time Serena Professor of Italian at Oxford and Professor of English at the University of Naples, died at Naples, aged 85, on 9th November, 1963. He taught at Oxford, first as lecturer then as professor for a span of over 30 years, only interrupted by service in Italy as a cavalry officer in the first world war. It is no exaggeration to say that Foligno's influence on the development of academic Italian studies in this country has been, and still is, enormous; first, through his own students and then, indirectly, through them on later generations. At the time he started teaching, Italian studies here had a curiously amateur flavour, despite the important work done in the field of Dante scholarship. Foligno himself, trained as he had been by Francesco Novati, was in every sense, a professional. For him, enthusiasm was no excuse for lack of knowledge. Literary criticism had to be built on facts and only then on an appreciation of facts. No general theories, no fine writing, could compensate for a lack of fundamental probity. His old pupils will remember the quite pitiless, but wonderfully salutary way he would strip the tinsel of the second-hand and the second-rate from their essays. His keen eyes saw through the meretricious façade to the lack of structure behind it, and his keen tongue gave reasons that were so just that no offence was taken. Truth and understanding was the quest of scholarship and teacher and pupil alike were concerned only with that.
Loading…
Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.