ita Severi, now an independent scholar after a long teaching career as Professor of English language and culture at the University of Verona, has published essays and books in English and Italian. Her research covers the Victorian period with publications on and editions of Oscar Wilde: a bi-lingual edition of The Ballad of Reading Goal, with an introduction (Palermo: Novecento, 1998); Oscar Wilde & Company (Bologna: Patron, 2001); Oscar Wilde: l’anima dell’uomo Oscar Wilde in Italia, fully illustrated (Palermo: Novecento, 1998); the edition of the papers of the International Conference, “La Vita Come Arte’ Oscar Wilde, le Arti e I’Italia" (Palermo: Novecento, 2001); La Biblioteca di Oscar Wilde (Palermo: Novecento, 2004); and “'Astonishing in my Italian': Oscar Wilde’s first Italian editions, 1890—1952," in The Reception of Oscar Wilde in Europe (London: Continuum, 2010: 108—23, and 314-17; as well as many articles in a range of publications.
Rita has also written on Ronald Firbank, Vernon Lee, Maurice Hewlett and others. Her other work includes studies in the Renaissance period, where she has made new discoveries about Shakespeare and Anglo/Italian relations, and Giacomo Castelvetro, published in Rinascimenti: Shakespeare and Anglo/Italian Relations (Bologna: Patron, 2009). She is also engaged in ongoing research over a longer time span, from the sixteenth to the sixteenth century to the present, on Anglophone travelers to Italy.
Rita is an active member of several academic and cultural associations, such as Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerche sul Viaggio in Italia (CIRVI), Societa Italiana di Comparatistica Letteraria (SICL), and the Shakespeare Association of India. She is a life member of the British Institute in Florence. Her latest books are: a bilingual edition of Shakespeare’s Mantua: A Cultural Itinerary (Mantova: Sometti, 2016); the first Italian edition of William Dean Howells' Viaggi in Italia (Moncalieri, CIRVI,2017); Art in Shakespeare and Other Essays (Bologna: Patron, 2018); Oscar Wilde, Canto del Cigno (Milano, Mursia, 2019); and Edith Wharton, una scrittrice americana in Italia (Milano, Mursia, 2023).
Created 10 April 2026