The Serena Professorship of Italian is the senior

professorship Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

in the study of Italian language, literature and culture at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The university owns and operates majo ...

and

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

. At Cambridge, it was founded in 1917 by a donation of £10,000 from Arthur Serena (died 1922), a

shipbroker Shipbroking is a financial service, which forms part of the global shipping industry. Shipbrokers are specialist intermediaries/negotiators (i.e. brokers) between shipowners and charterers who use ships to transport cargo, or between buyers an ...

and son of the

Venetian Venetian often means from or related to: * Venice, a city in Italy * Veneto, a region of Italy * Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area Venetian and the like may also refer to: * Venetian language, a Romance language s ...

patriot Leone Serena. He also endowed the Serena Medal awarded annually by the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars s ...

for furtherance of the study of Italian history, philosophy, music, literature, art and economics.

Serena Professors at Birmingham

Linetta de Castelvecchio Richardson Linetta Palamidessi de Castelvecchio Richardson (13 October 1880 – 4 June 1975) was an Italian-British scholar. Career Having taught informally at the two women's colleges of the University of Cambridge, she was a lecturer and head of Italian ...

(1921–1946) * J. H. Whitfield (1946-1974) * Philip McNair (1974-1994) * Michael Caesar (1994-2008)

Serena Professors at Cambridge

Thomas Okey Thomas Okey (30 September 1852 – 4 May 1935) was an expert on basket weaving, a translator of Italian, and a writer on art and the topography of architecture and art works in Italy and France. Okey's first experience of the Italian language cam ...

(1919-1929) * Raffaello Piccoli (1929-1933) * Edward Bullough (1933-1934) * Eric Reginald Pearce Vincent (1935-1962)''Italian Studies presented to E. R. Vincent on his retirement from the Chair of Italian at Cambridge''; edited by C. P. Brand, K. Foster, U. Limentani. Cambridge: Heffer, 1962 * Uberto Limentani (1962-1981) * Patrick Boyde (1982-2002) * Zygmunt Barański (2002-2012) * Robert Gordon (2012–present)

Serena Professors at Manchester

* E. G. Gardner (1920) * P. Rébora (1923) *

Mario Praz Mario Praz (; September 6, 1896, Rome – March 23, 1982, Rome) was an Italian-born critic of art and literature, and a scholar of English literature. His best-known book, ''The Romantic Agony'' (1933), was a comprehensive survey of the decadent, ...

(1932–34) *

Walter Llewellyn Bullock Professor Walter Llewellyn Bullock (7 March 1890 – 19 February 1944) was a prominent member of the Bullock family, an English scholar, critic, teacher, lecturer and promoter of Italian Studies at the Universities of Chicago and Manchester where ...

(1935–1944) (The Chair was vacant between 1944 and 1961) * Giovanni Aquilecchia (1961–1970) * Thomas Gwynfor ('Gwyn') Griffith (1971–1988) * David Robey (1989–1998) * Maggie Günsberg (2000–2004) * Stephen J. Milner (2006–present)

Serena Professors at Oxford

* Cesare Foligno (1919–40) * Alessandro Passerin d'Entrèves (1946–57) *

Cecil Grayson Cecil Grayson, CBE, FBA (5 February 1920 – 29 April 1998) was an English Italian studies scholar. He was the Serena Professor of Italian Studies at the University of Oxford from 1958 to 1987. Life Career Born on 5 February 1920, Grayson c ...

(1957–87) * ''unfilled'' (1987–90) * John Woodhouse (1990–2001) * Martin McLaughlin (2001–2017) * Simon Gilson (2018–date) When after Grayson’s retirement the Serena Chair was ‘frozen’, because of government funding cuts, Gianni Agnelli, head of Fiat, agreed a contribution of £750,000 to ‘unfreeze’ the Oxford Chair. In recognition of this benefaction, the name of the Chair at Oxford became the Fiat-Serena Chair of Italian Studies. In the summer of 2009 there was a further modification in nomenclature when the name changed to the Agnelli-Serena Chair of Italian Studies, a change which reflects more directly the role of the two great benefactors at the beginning and end of the twentieth century.

References

*Charlton, H. B. (1951) ''Portrait of a University''. Manchester U. P.; p. 173 *Uberto Limentani, ‘Leone and Arthur Serena and the Cambridge Chair of Italian 1919-1934’, in Martin McLaughlin (ed.), ''Britain and Italy from Romanticism to Modernism. A Festschrift for Peter Brand'' (Oxford: Legenda, 2000), pp. 154–77. {{DEFAULTSORT:Professor of Italian, Serena Italian, Serena School of Arts and Humanities, University of Cambridge Italian, Serena Magdalen College, Oxford Academics of the Victoria University of Manchester Academics of the University of Manchester Language education in the United Kingdom Italian, Serena Italian-language education Geographical distribution of the Italian language Lists of people associated with the University of Oxford