The ultimate indicator of a society is how you treat the most vulnerable. Joseph Luzzi

In this episode of 15 with Fosca, I speak with Professor Joseph Luzzi, Asher B. Edelman Professor of Literature at Bard College and acclaimed scholar of Italian culture.

Our conversation centers on his latest book, The Innocents of Florence, a powerful exploration of the Ospedale degli Innocenti, the Renaissance institution that cared for abandoned children for over five centuries. But this episode goes far beyond history.

Together, we explore the intersection of art, childhood, grief, civic responsibility, and the role of the humanities in shaping a more humane society.

Luzzi shares the deeply personal moment that led him to write the book, connecting his own experience of loss and fatherhood to the mission of the Innocenti. He reflects on the Renaissance belief in beauty as a form of care, and on what it means to dignify human life, especially for the most vulnerable.

We also discuss the crisis and resurgence of the humanities, particularly in an age increasingly shaped by technology and AI, and pose important questions on why literature, art, and history still matter and what they give us that no algorithm can.

Don’t miss this conversation on what it means to build a society that’s worth living in.

Biography

Joseph Luzzi received his PhD from Yale University. He is the Asher B. Edelman Professor of Literature at Bard College, where he also teaches courses on film and Italian Studies.

He is the author of eight books, including his recent The Innocents of Florence. His other books include Botticelli’s Secret: The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance (Norton, 2022), a New Yorker Best Books of 2022 selection and shortlisted for the Phi Beta Kappa Ralph Waldo Emerson Award.

Romantic Europe and the Ghost of Italy (Yale University Press, 2008), which received the MLA’s Scaglione Prize for Italian Studies; A Cinema of Poetry: Aesthetics of the Italian Art Film (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), a finalist for the international prize “The Bridge Book” Award; My Two Italies (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice; and In a Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love (HarperCollins, 2015), which has been translated into multiple languages.

Joseph’s essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, TLS, Bookforum, and American Scholar, among others, and his scholarly writing has appeared in PMLA, Modern Language Notes, Modern Language Quarterly, Raritan, Italica, and Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century. His media appearances include a profile in the Guardian and an interview with National Public Radio. Among his honors are a Dante Society of America essay prize, Yale College teaching prize, a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars Award, and fellowships from the National Humanities Center and Yale’s Whitney Humanities Center. The first American-born child in his Italian immigrant family, Luzzi was named Cittadino Onorario / Honorary Citizen of Acri, Calabria, in 2017.

A widely sought-after speaker, he has presented worldwide on literature, art, film, and the power of the humanities. Joseph is the founder of the Virtual Book Club, an international online community devoted to exploring some of the best books ever written.

Links

https://josephluzzi.com/

https://josephluzzi.com/virtual-book-club/

https://josephluzzi.com/book/the-innocents-of-florence/

https://www.facebook.com/luzzi.joseph

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Podcast Producer: Andrew Niklas Curtis

Production Intern: Nicole Stevens

Recorded via Zoom, post-production Lorenzo Maiani, Faminore Sound Agency