Almond cookies imported from Rome, penne alla vodka driven up from the Bronx, M&Ms monogrammed with “Italian @ Williams,” and a serenade from the Williams Concert Choir were just a few highlights of last Thursday’s second annual Italian Festival, organized by the Italian program and held in Goodrich Hall. In light of the College’s discontinuation of the program, the event held a special significance, but the plethora of food, student presentations, and choir performances made sure the evening was anything but melancholy.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Romance Languages Mario Sassi came up with the idea for the festival after starting his position last September. He said he sought to create an event celebrating the different forms of Italian culture present at the College. “After the first couple of weeks I was at Williams, I had a lot of students that were Italian American, and they all were broadly interested in Italian stuff,” he said. “I was like, ‘Wow, Williams doesn’t have a department of Italian, so why don’t we take advantage of this to celebrate what we have around us?’”
The joy and exuberance of the event was particularly powerful in light of the College’s decision to end the Italian program next semester. “I didn’t want to turn the Italian festival into a funeral, because that was not the purpose,” Sassi said. “We were still celebrating all the fun that we had together… For me, the part that has been the best is that I have students that went to Italy and [sent] me pictures of them making pasta, or visiting Dante’s tomb.”
“It’s the human side that I think only a place like Williams would allow,” he added. “This is why I think it was important for me not to bring any somber feelings.”
In keeping with Sassi’s goal of a cheerful mood, the event featured Italian food, video testimonials from students currently abroad in Italy, and live music. Sassi knew he wanted music to feature prominently in the event, so he reached out to Assistant Professor of Music Elizabeth Elmi, who pointed him to Choir Director Anna Lenti. Sassi and Lenti arranged a choir performance.
“I didn’t want this to become like a conference,” Sassi said. “The choir was the biggest thing that I wanted, the biggest part of the event. And I was so happy that Anna said yes.”
The event featured performances of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Va Pensiero” from his opera Nabucco by the Concert Choir. It also featured Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s “Sicut Cervus,” by the Chamber Choir, and Giacomo Puccini’s “Donde Lieta” from La Boheme by Sarah Danielle Dané Taïwé ’26.
Assistant Professor of Physics Graham Giovanetti, who has audited three Italian classes, presented at the event, showcasing his work on the detection of dark matter at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. Giovanetti said that auditing Italian courses has enhanced his work as a physicist. “Personally, it is such a benefit to speak Italian for my work, and also for my social relationships with my co-workers in Italy,” he said.
Presentations like Giovanetti’s underscored how Italy and the Italian language are vital to a multitude of fields. “There really is a vibrant community of either Italian speakers or people interested in speaking Italian that are … crossing departmental and divisional boundaries,” Giovanetti said. “You show up at Italian lunch on Wednesdays, and there are people from the sciences [and] humanities, there are students that are interested in a whole broad range of things.”
“I think it has a much broader appeal and impact than you might naïvely assign to learning Italian,” he added.
Throughout the night, students shared their experiences studying abroad in Italy and traveling to the country during Winter Study.
Ella Sobhani ’25, one of the student presenters, discussed spending this past Winter Study in Siena. After taking Italian for one semester at the College, she studied abroad in Siena during her junior spring. Sobhani enjoyed her time abroad so much that she was determined to go back for her last Winter Study at the College.
She became interested in researching traditional foods of Italy by chance. “I stumbled upon a gastronomical map of Italy, a vintage one, and it was just really cool,” she said. “It had all the different provinces and regions and what [foods] they’re known for, and it just interested me, and I wanted to know where these recipes were going.”
She was initially going to write a research paper building on interviews with people who had conserved inherited Italian recipes. However, she ultimately decided to use the interviews to make a documentary. Sassi asked Sobhani to play her documentary at the festival. “The video project was great for this kind of environment, because you get to see an immediate use of the language by students,” he said.
The festival would not have been complete without the thoughtful catering. Valerie DiFebo ’84, a trustee of the College, was one of the architects behind the festival’s decadent menu, driving up from New York City with an abundance of food. “I brought chicken parmesan, penne alla vodka, sausage, peppers, and different kinds of antipastos — all from Arthur Avenue in the Bronx,” she said. “[It] is a place that still celebrates Italian American heritage, because people came over from Italy and moved there, and they still live there. It’s a very sort of authentic Italian neighborhood.”
She also brought cannoli and sfogliatelle from Geno’s, a bakery on Arthur Avenue, the heart of New York’s Little Italy. “[Geno’s] knows that this is a Williams event, so in February, when I start calling early, the guy’ll go, ‘Are we going to Williamstown?’” she said. “I brought a bunch of desserts — if I tell you how many, you’ll faint. There were like 150 cannoli, and there were also 150 sfogliatelle, and they were all gone.”
The menu also included pizzas from CRUST and a table-wide assortment of cookies that Sassi imported from Rome, directly from the bakery owned by one of his good friends. “They sent me this very large box,” he said. “It arrived in three days with this cornucopia of deliciousness.”
Students appreciated the effort that went into planning the event. “When I walked [into Goodrich] and I saw everything so decked out, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, do I go back to my dorm and change?’ I feel like I should be wearing a ball gown,” Sobhani said.
Despite the celebratory atmosphere of the festival, students taking Italian are still feeling the sting of the program’s impending demise. “[Professor Sassi] knew pretty early on this year that they were not going to have him return, but he still put in so much effort for us,” Sobhani said. “Not only in the Italian festival, but also there’s always some cute Italian programming that he has planned.”
DiFebo said that the festival’s success is a testament to continued interest in Italian at the College. “I watch the students ingesting the program with such enthusiasm and curiosity [and] I know there’s a thirst for [Italian],” she said. “Because of that, I would hope that there are people here who would continue to have an interest and an investment in continuing some of these traditions, like the Italian festival.”
Sassi urged students to continue their study of Italian even without a formal program. “I’m trying to convince students that, even though next year there’s no Italian, that doesn’t mean you cannot have the Italian table,” he said. “Don’t just don’t give up, don’t just say, ‘Okay, fine, I’m gonna forget everything I studied in Italian.’ Try to keep it alive.”
[Juno Pelczar, a member of Chamber Choir and an executive editor at the Record, was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.]
