10% off all books and free delivery over £40
Buy from our bookstore and 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice to buy more books. *15% of eBooks.

From Da Ponte to the Casa Italiana

View All Editions

The selected edition of this book is not available to buy right now.
Add To Wishlist
Write A Review

About

From Da Ponte to the Casa Italiana Synopsis

The Casa Italiana—a neo-Renaissance palazzo located on Amsterdam Avenue near 117th Street—has been the most important expression of the Italian presence on Columbia University’s campus since its construction in 1927. As a site of interdisciplinary scholarship and promotion of Italian culture, the Casa Italiana has made a substantial contribution to the academic study of Italy in America and the understanding of Italian cultural identity abroad. Celebrating the Casa’s ninetieth anniversary, From Da Ponte to the Casa Italiana documents and recounts the history of the individuals, both Italian and American, who contributed to the formation of Columbia University’s rich tradition of Italian studies. Barbara Faedda’s succinct yet detailed historical survey begins at the dawn of Italian studies at Columbia with Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart’s witty librettist who became the charismatic founder of the New York Metropolitan Opera and Columbia’s first professor of Italian. Covering figures such as the former revolutionary Eleuterio Felice Foresti, Faedda elucidates the complex and often controversial dimensions of the Casa’s history, highlighting protagonists such as the talented but equivocal Giuseppe Prezzolini and Columbia’s president Nicholas M. Butler, as well as Italian-American students and community members. The Casa played a significant role in U.S.-Italian relations from its foundation, and at one point it came under fire, accused of ties to Mussolini and pro-Fascist leanings. Synthesizing archival documents with the work of historians, From Da Ponte to the Casa Italiana tells the compelling stories of the Casa and several of its leading figures, whose influence on the university can still be felt today.

About This Edition

ISBN: 9780231185936
Publication date: 21st November 2017
Author: Barbara Faedda
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Format: Hardback
Pagination: 104 pages
Series: Columbiana
Genres: History of the Americas
Local history
Higher education, tertiary education
History of education
Higher education, tertiary education
Educational psychology
Language teaching and learning
Literature: history and criticism