Resources for Italian Studies

• UCL Library Special Collections: Dante Collection of 3,000+ specialist volumes, including large numbers of rare and early printed works;
   
• UCL Library Special Collections: Castiglione Collection of over 100 editions of Il libro del cortegiano (The Book of the Courtier), a complex work of court etiquette, political morality and humanist thought by Renaissance Italian author Baldassare Castiglione. This is one of the most complete collections of editions known to exist, with items dating from the first five early Aldine editions of 1528 to the 20th century;
   
• UCL Art Museum: holds large numbers of works by Italians or relating to Italy e.g. Flaxman’s Dante drawings, Piranesi’s views of Rome. Many are viewable via the online catalogue.

Dictionaries

• Vocabolario Treccani
• Accademia della Crusca (a range of dictionaries available, including historical and specialist ones)
• Collins Italian-English dictionary

TV

• RAI news: the main TV channel, includes live news
• RAI Play
• TECHE RAI

Radio

• RAI Play Radio

News

• Londra, Italia, the online newspaper for Italians in London
• Il post: for articles, blogs, photos, etc.
• La Repubblica
• Il Corriere della Sera

Institutions offering regular events:

• Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Londra / Italian Cultural Institute
• The British School at Rome
• Institute of Modern Languages Research, London
• FILL: Festival of Italian Literature in London

Digital texts and literary databases

• Biblioteca italiana, free database of Italian texts
• La Biblioteca della letteratura italiana, another free database for Italian texts
• A regularly updated bibliographical database for records from Italian and international journals collected since 2000
• Italian Dialect Poetry

Medieval and Renaissance resources

• Società Italiana Dantesca (SDI): activities of the Italian national Dante Studies association, and resources for the study of Dante
• Società Dante Alighieri
• Dante Society of America: the largest Dante Studies association in the English-speaking world
• Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture: a zany spectrum of references to Dante in the modern world, ranging across films and TV series, performances, poetry, political activism, through to Halloween costumes, themed pizzas, and more
• The Decameron Web
• PetrArchive: an edition of Petrarch’s Songbook
• Petrarch Exegesis in Renaissance Italy (PERI)
• Edit16: Database of 16th century Italian printed editions
• Italian Academies Dabatase, 1525-1700, British Library

Extensive Italian collections are available from across different periods, from the medieval to contemporary, in the following galleries, which in many cases have digital archives and resources:

• National Gallery, London
• V&A Museum, London
• Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London
• Tate Modern, London
• Design Museum, London
• Courtauld Gallery, London
• Uffizi gallery, Le Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence
• Vatican Museum, Rome (Musei Vaticani): virtual tours
• Pinacoteca di Brera
• Raffaello Virtuale

• UCL runs its own Italian Film Club
• Cinema Italia UK
• British Film Institute (BFI)
• Filmitalia: Italian Contemporary Cinema
• Italian film festival

• Vivaldi: vivaio acustico delle lingue e dei dialetti italiani. This is a German project, but you can hear how differently the same words and phrases are pronounced across different Italian regions
• Società di Linguistica Italiana (SLI)
• Linguistics Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (LAGB)
• Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE)

London is a very active centre for Italian culture, ranging from literature and art to food and opera, with events being held regularly:

• Italian Cultural Institute (ICI)
• Italian Bookshop in Kensington
• British Film Institute: London Film Festival
• Bellavita Expo (the best of food and beverage, cooking classes, etc.)
• St Peter’s Italian church
• Festa della Madonna del Carmine
• Royal Opera House
• English National Opera (but sung in English only)

• Mondadori
• Torrossa
• The Society for Italian Studies: supports Italian Studies in Britain and Ireland
• Il Circolo, Italian Cultural Association: a London based charity which promotes Italian culture in this country