Professor John Woodhouse

It is with great sadness that the College reports the recent death of Supernumerary Fellow Professor John Woodhouse.

Professor Woodhouse was Fellow of Italian at Pembroke from 1984 to 1989, before moving to Magdalen College as the first Fiat Serena Professor of Italian, a post he held until his retirement in 2001. He was also the founder of the Oxford Italian Association (TOIA), which organises lectures and events for Italophiles in the University and the wider Oxford community.

John is remembered by former colleagues and students as a generous and loyal man: a gifted lecturer, a devoted tutor and supervisor, and a prolific researcher in several fields of Italian studies. His scholarship was extraordinarily wide-ranging, with major volumes on Renaissance writers and on modern authors: he was the first to write a monograph in English on Italo Calvino, and in the latter part of his career he became an authority on Gabriele D’Annunzio, of whom he wrote a major biography. Not surprisingly, his expertise was recognised with a number of honours and prizes: he was a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of Italy’s prestigious Accademia della Crusca. His legacy lives on in his many learned books and in the brilliant doctoral students he supervised, several of whom have gone on to major academic careers.

Our current Fellow of Italian, Professor Guido Bonsaver, remembers John as a kind, older colleague whom he first met when John was appointed external examiner of his PhD. He recalls: “We remained in contact, and when I arrived at Oxford, eleven years later, John accepted a few invitations to come to College and share memories and future plans around a glass of wine. It is thanks to him that Italian was established at Pembroke and I am proud to be able to continue the study of this subject for the benefit of future generations of Pembrokians.”