Apennine Crossings

Travellers on the Edge of Tuscany

A Scottish Book Launch.

A illustrated talk by Nick Havely, Emeritus Professor of English and Related Literature, University of York

24th October 2024 at 19:15 at Fountainhall Church Centre (formerly Rubislaw Church Centre), 1 Beaconsfield Place, Aberdeen AB15 4AB

The book with this title was published this year and links Nick Havely’s own twenty-first century journey across the Apennine crinale – the ridge between Tuscany and Emilia -Romagna – to those of pilgrims, tourists and combatants from the Middle Ages to the Second World War. His talk will introduce the route taken, some of the travellers who crossed it, their perceptions of the landscape, and the various problems and dangers that they and I encountered. It will be illustrated with images of Apennine locations and readings from the book.

Nick Havely is Emeritus Professor at the University of York where he taught medieval and early modern literature. He is at present an Honorary Research Fellow at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, Oxford Among his recent books are Dante’s British Public (2014), After Dante: Poets in Purgatory (2021), and Apennine Crossings (2024). His current projects include The Roads to Florence (an anthology of writing by British and American travellers) and a verse translation of late and unpublished poems by Attilio Bertolucci.