The Serena Professorship of Italian is the senior professorship in the study of Italian language, literature and culture at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

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 of Manchester is c ...

and

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

. At Cambridge, it was founded in 1917 by a donation of £10,000 from Arthur Serena (died 1922), a shipbroker and son of the Venetian patriot Leone Serena. He also endowed the Serena Medal awarded annually by the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies 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 sa ...

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

Serena Professors at Birmingham

* Linetta de Castelvecchio Richardson (1921–1946) * J. H. Whitfield (1946–1974) * Philip McNair (1974–1994) * Michael Caesar (1994–2008)

Serena Professors at Cambridge

* Thomas Okey (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 (1932–1934) * Walter Llewellyn Bullock (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 (1919–1940) *

Alessandro Passerin d'Entrèves Alessandro is both a given name and a surname, the Italian form of the name Alexander. Notable people with the name include: People with the given name Alessandro * Alessandro Allori (1535–1607), Italian portrait painter * Alessandro Baric ...

(1946–1957) * Cecil Grayson (1957–1987) * ''unfilled'' (1987–1990) * John Woodhouse (1990–2001) * Martin McLaughlin (2001–2017) * Simon Gilson (2018–present) When after Grayson's retirement the Serena Chair was ‘frozen’, because of government funding cuts,

Gianni Agnelli Giovanni "Gianni" Agnelli (; 12 March 192124 January 2003), nicknamed ("The Lawyer"), was an Italian industrialist and principal shareholder of Fiat S.p.A., Fiat. As the head of Fiat, he controlled 4.4% of Italy's GDP, 3.1% of its industrial ...

, head of

Fiat Fiat Automobiles S.p.A., commonly known as simply Fiat ( , ; ), is an Italian automobile manufacturer. It became a part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in 2014 and, in 2021, became a subsidiary of Stellantis through its Italian division, Stellant ...

, 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