LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

Eleonora Duse Collection

Over 1,000 items relating to the Italian actress Eleanora Duse (1858-1924), collected by Giovanni Pontiero and bequeathed to the Library in 1996. Included amongst the papers are postcards, programmes, offprints and photographs, as well as correspondence in connection with Pontiero's biography of Duse. 31 printed books accompany the manuscript items.

Papers of the Italian Refugees' Relief Committee

The Italian Refugees' Relief Committee was was set up in 1927 as a non-political humanitarian organisation to raise funds to support those who fled Mussolini's Fascist regime. British immigration regulations of the time did not permit the entry of refugees into Britain, but the British Committee was able to send funds and material aid to their French counterparts, the Comité de Secours aux Réfugiés Politiques Italiens, which supported a large exile community in Paris. The collection contains correspondence on subjects including acceptance or rejection of membership, donations, appeals, Committee meetings and finance. There is also correspondence from the French committee, particularly from Giovanna Berneri (wife of the anarchist anti-Fascist Luigi Camillo Berneri), reporting on visits to refugee families, other activities of the organisation, and finance. The rest of the collection contains copies of appeals and letters sent to the press, pamphlets, reports, accounts and balance sheets, and other miscellaneous items.

Rubeo Collection

The Rubeo Collection was purchased from the collector Capitano Giuseppe Rubeo. It consists of some 4000 books, many rare, on a variety of subjects. They include many hundreds of volumes relating to Italian fascism, published during the fascist period itself, which are particularly rare, as such books were usually thrown out and destroyed at the end of the war, by both private collectors and libraries, and are now extremely hard to locate in Italy. Probably the most interesting sub-category here are the many books published in the 1920s and 1930s on the Italian colonies (Libya and Ethiopia). There is also literature, including first or early editions of important literary texts by writers such as Ardengo Soffici, Giovannli Papini, and Giuseppe Prezzolini. The Library is currently seeking funding for the full cataloguing of this collection.

Documents from the Salò Republic

A collection of documents from Mussolini's Salò Republic, or Repubblica Sociale Italiana, a Nazi-instigated regime based on the shores of Lake Garda from 1943 to 1945. The collection includes material from different administrative departments. One group of files from the Ministero degli Affari Esteri contains around 350 documents pertaining to the requisition of properties for government use. Other sections include orders from the Ministero delle Forze Armate: Sottosegretariato di Stato per la Marina, vehicle and travel permits from the Guardia del Duce, and anti-Allied and pro-Fascist propaganda from the Ministero della Cultura Popolare. There are also three passports issued by the regime, around 40 intercepted radio messages from Allied broadcasts, including from Reuters and from the Vatican radio, and twenty bulletins issued by the regime's news agency, the Agenzia Stefani.

Sprigge Collection

Cecil Jackson Squire Sprigge was chief correspondent for Reuters in Italy during World War II. He had previously been Italian correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, where he was succeeded by his wife Sylvia. The Sprigge collection covers the period c. 1920-1970 and reflects the Sprigges' interest in all aspects of Italian affairs, including the Fascist regime, Vatican politics, post-war reconstruction, art and literature. They also contain material about European politics and diplomatic relations. Printed books from the Sprigge collection were added to the Main Library stock and include material on Italian history, politics and philosophy, as well as a number of guidebooks and pamphlets collected by the Sprigges during their time in Italy. A number of the books are not yet fully catalogued.