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The Catherine Frisone Scott Center for Italian Cultural Studies plans a host of events throughout the year, on the UMass Boston campus, at other sites around the city and online. Subscribe to our mailing list to keep current with our calendar!

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Upcoming events sponsored by the Catherine Frisone Scott Center for Italian Cultural Studies

"Helen and 'Belle': Italy and the Italian Past through American Eyes"
Wednesday, April 8, 2:00pm on campus, Campus Center 3-3540

A white marble bust of a woman

The UMass Boston Catherine Frisone Scott Center, in collaboration with the History Department, is pleased to host Dr. Brian Maxson, Professor of History at East Tennessee State University. Dr. Maxson will be delivering a talk at 2:00 pm (Campus Center 3-3540, University Drive North, Boston, MA 02125).

Years before Isabella Stewart Gardner turned her house into a museum and shrine to Italian art, teenager “Belle” spent months in Rome with her friend Helen Ruthven Waterston. Belle appears with some regularity in Helen’s diaries, providing at times amusing anecdotes about two American teens experiencing the Grand Tour in the mid 1800s. Beyond her comments about Belle, Helen’s diaries also offer insights into how Americans balanced admiration of and prejudice against Italians. Finally, the memorialization of Helen after her premature death in Naples at the age of 17 also illuminates the at times odd ways elite Bostonians processed Italian culture and history before people like Isabella Stewart Gardner popularized the idea of an “Italian Renaissance” in the United States.

Attendance is free to all. We hope to see you on April 8!

 

Past events sponsored by the Catherine Frisone Scott Center for Italian Cultural Studies

 

Catherine Frisone Scott Center for Italian Cultural Studies

100 Morrissey Blvd.
Boston, MA 02125