Named in honor of the Italian anti-fascist historian Gaetano Salvemini who spent much of his career as a professor in the Harvard department of history, this annual lecture is co-sponsored with the Consulate General of Italy in Boston and aims to foster a spirit of intellectual and scholarly inquiry into Italian history within the Harvard community and beyond.
The name Gaetano Salvemini is often associated with that of Harvard. The Italian historian first arrived in Cambridge in 1933 and taught at Harvard until 1948, thanks to special funding provided by the American actress, Ruth Draper, the companion of Lauro De Bosis – a young antifascist who in 1931 died in a plane crash bound for Rome – and to the particular interest of then-president of Harvard, James Conant.
During his years in Cambridge, Salvemini dedicated his time to teaching and research, bringing many projects to fruition. Perhaps his most important work was on antifascist movement and he often collaborated with other exiled European professors teaching at Harvard during that time. Salvemini returned to Italy in 1949 where he continued, until his death in 1957, to be a key political analyst and a critic in the world of Italian culture, a role in which he thrived independently and free from outside influence.
Gaetano Salvemini Colloquium in Italian History and Culture — A Mind Never at Rest: A Tribute to Franco Modigliani (1918-2003)
Salvemini Colloquium in Italian History and Culture — "Nothing Changed," Yet Nothing Was the Same: On the 70th Anniversary of Italian Women’s Suffrage
Gaetano Salvemini and the Harvard Years: Profile of a European Exile
The Annual Gaetano Salvemini Colloquium in Italian History and Culture — Notes on the Ethics of Resistance
The Annual Gaetano Salvemini Colloquium in Italian History and Culture — Italy's Great War: A Centennial Perspective
Annual Gaetano Salvemini Colloquium: — Italy 1943-1948: From Catastrophe to Reconstruction
