A talk by Dr Frances Clemente and Dr Greta Colombani

Grove Auditorium, Magdalen College, Oxford

Ever since its unrivalled popularity as the principal destination of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Grand Tour, Italy has stood at the centre of an enduring tradition of cultural travel and exchange. Italian literary cafés played a crucial role in that story.

Dr Clemente and Dr Colombani will map these cafés as significant sites of cultural encounter, retracing the networks of writers, intellectuals, artists and travellers who gathered there from across Italy, Europe and beyond. Their talk will range from Goethe, Dickens and Sartre to Dario Fo, María Zambrano and Yoko Ono.