Gian-Paolo Biasin, Professor of Italian Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, since 1981, died Monday, August 24, 1998, after two years of courageous struggle against cancer. He is survived by his devoted wife, Rita, and son, Giovanni of Berkeley, and in Italy by his loving mother, two brothers, and a sister.
He was a native of Italy, born in Reggio Emilia on November 7, 1933, and raised in Sassuolo near Modena, to which city his family had moved when he was a boy. After obtaining in 1952 the Diploma di Maturità from the Liceo Classico “L.A. Muratori” in Modena, he...
Steven Botterill passed away on May 5, 2018, at the age of 60. He joined the Berkeley faculty in 1986, after receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, and was an Associate Professor at the time of his death. He published widely on Dante and other aspects of medieval Italian literature.
He was a two-time elected member of the Council of the Dante Society of America, and editor emeritus of the Society’s journal, Dante Studies. A beloved teacher, Professor Botterill covered the spectrum of Italian literature and culture from 1200 to 1500, with occasional forays into the...
Gustavo Costa was Professor Emeritus of Italian Studies.
Gustavo Costa took his laurea at La Sapienza, University of Rome, and a post-doctoral specialization at the Istituto per gli Studi Storici in Naples thereafter. Following brief apprenticeships in Rome and Lyon, in 1961 Costa joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, in the Department of Italian, where he served until his retirement in 1991 first as instructor, then as assistant, associate, and full professor, with two terms as department chair.
Gustavo’s scholarly accomplishments were extraordinary,...
Catherine (better known to all as Caterina), passed away peacefully in her home on Wednesday, April 27, 2022. She held a BA from North Dakota State University, an MA from Berkeley, was a Lecturer Emerita in Italian. For many years she served as coordinator of the Department’s language teaching program, in succession to the late Cecilia Ross, was active in professional development and the development of pedagogical materials, and was a tireless advocate for Italy’s language and culture throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
For her obituary and guestbook on SFGate, click...
UC Berkeley dean and professor emeritus of Italian Studies and Music, Anthony Newcomb, passed away peacefully at his home on Sunday, November 18th in Berkeley. A widely-respected music scholar, Newcomb’s research focused on vocal music of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras, and later the ontological connections between Wagner and 18th and 19th-century instrumental works.
Newcomb was born New York City and received his B.A. from UC Berkeley in 1962. Following a stint studying under the noted Dutch musician and scholar Gustav Leonhardt, Newcomb returned to the United States where...
Nicolas J. Perella was Professor Emeritus of Italian Studies. The acknowledged dean of Leopardi studies in the United States, he was also an accomplished translator.
His books include The Kiss Sacred and Profane; An Interpretative History of Kiss Symbolism and Related Religio-Erotic Themes (1969); Night and the Sublime in Giacomo Leopardi (1970); The Critical Fortune of Battista Guarini’s “Il pastor fido” (1973); Midday in Italian Literature: Variations on an Archetypal Theme (1979); Studies in the Italian Renaissance: Essays in Memory of...
Emeritus Professor of Italian Studies and Near Eastern Studies
Italian Studies
Near Eastern Studies
Ruggero Stefanini was Porfesor Emeritus of Italian Studies and Near Eastern Studies.
Professor Ruggero Stefanini was born in Borgo San Lorenzo, Italy, a town not too far from Florence. In addition to Italian, its inhabitants speak, or spoke until recently, a Tuscan dialect similar to that spoken in Florence, where, as in Borgo San Lorenzo, the citizens are, or once were, bilingual. This is worth mentioning because language was so prominently of the essence in Ruggero. When he spoke in Italian, strictly Italian, you would hear a cultivated, fluidly elegant native speaker. When...
