In Memoriam: Charles Speroni

Abstract

In Memoriam: Charles Speroni On August 28, 1984, Charles Speroni, long associateti with Italian Studies at UCLA, passed away. Charles Speroni was born in Santa Fiora, Tuscany, on November 1911, and after finishing high school in Rome in 1929, carne to the United States. He earned bis Ph.D. in Romance Languages from UC, Berkeley in 1938 and married bis lifelong companion, Carmela Corica, in 1939. As it a scholar bis main focus was Renaissance traditions; litera- ture, especially as for reflected folle many of bis studies, example, treated proverbs and proverbiai phrases, wellerisms, of Cahfornia publications. customs and popular song which are coUected sity He is number of Univer- probably best remembered in a for: Wit and W'isdom of the ali Italian Renaissance, Lettere di S. Miche- langelo Buonarroti (selected and annotated by C. Stone; with Irving of these letters formed the basis for Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy), and, of course, by more than one generation of Italian language students, for bis Basic Italian (with Carlo Colino), soon to appear in its 6th edition. At the time of his death. Speroni was revising his Berkeley dissertation, a is pioneering work on elements of folklore in Dante, a study which lication. In addition, presently being revised for pub- Fast, a he co-edited The Shape of the volume of studies in honor or his dose friend Franklin D. Murphy. He founded served as its Modem Department of Italian at UCLA in 1935 and from 1949 to 1956. He was both editor of The Language Forum, and co-founder and associate editor of the chair