October 5 2026: Dr Stella Fletcher, The British in Venice

Stella Fletcher: The British in Venice  Synopsis: The Anglo-Roman story is easily told by means of pilgrimage, ecclesiastical diplomacy or the quest for ancient artefacts. Art looms large in the Anglo-Florentine story. Before the era of mass tourism, Venice did not attract the British in anywhere near the same numbers as did Rome or Florence, so this lecture will feature a succession of individuals whose names can be linked to create an Anglo-Venetian narrative, albeit not a continuous one. When I spoke to the Lit & Phil about concepts of the Renaissance in the nineteenth century, Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience loomed large. You may be assured that The Gondoliers will not feature this time, because in that piece Venice serves only as a political oddity, a republic in a world of monarchies. Instead, you might like to read the Venetian stories of Thomas Mann, Henry James or Daphne du Maurier, or watch the film versions of the same, in order to get a sense of the place.  Biography: Dr Stella Fletcher is a councillor of the Royal Historical Society and an honorary research fellow of the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, University of Warwick. Her background is in Italian Renaissance history, though she has published on English cardinals, archbishops of Canterbury, Anglo-papal relations, and William Roscoe as a figure in Anglo-Italian cultural history. She is currently working on a variety of projects, including in the spheres of late nineteenth/early twentieth-century art and architecture, and early twenty-first-century blogging.