Event Details
Mon, February 16, 2026
18:00 – 19:30
VILLA LA PIETRA
Villa La Pietra
Via Bolognese, 120
50139 Florence, Italy
“On arriving at Oxford for matriculation in May [1922], I felt I had left one capital of romance for another. The change of valley was the more exciting because here youth reigned, instead of age; and I was more interested in dreaming youth than in dreaming spires”.
-Harold Acton, Memoirs of an Aesthete (1948), p. 110
A lecture by Mark Roberts, Archivist, introduced by Francesca Baldry, Collection Manager.
Featured Biographies
Mark Roberts
ARCHIVIST
Mark Roberts has an M.A. in English Language and Literature from Magdalen College, Oxford. From 1977 to 2021 he worked for the British Institute of Florence, and from 2001 to 2008 he processed Harold Acton’s papers for New York University. He has translated many books for Italian publishers, mainly history of art. He is the author of Florence Has Won My Heart: Literary Visitors to the Tuscan Capital, 1750-1950, published in 2024 by Anthony Eyre.