Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

FUORI D'ITALIA: IL RICORDO DI COLLEGHI E ALLIEVI
1) CHRISTOPHER SETON-WATSON, socio onorario dell'Istituto.
8 September 1995 Dear Talamo,
You invited me to contribute to the number of the Rassegna which is to be dedicated to Emilia Morelli. Unfortunately I have been unable to find suffìcient material for an article, but hope that this letter will suffice as my personal tribute.
Emilia was a good and much valued friend to me for more than twenty years, and I never failed to cali upon ber at the Vittoriano wberever I was in Rome. But my correspondence with her consists only of very brief notes, concerned almost entirely with my attendance at the Istituto's successive congresses. The letters reveal the strength of our mutuai respect and affection, but would not be suitable for publicatìon, nor provide suffìcient basis for an article.
Emilia was of course well known to British studente of ItaBan history of my generation. But she was hardly known to the younger generation, whose main interest lies in fascist and republican Italy, and not sadly in the Risorgimento. Those with whom I have corresponded have ali expressed gratitude for her helprulness and kindness. One of them, Professor Detek Beales (University of Cambridge), who studied in the Istituto in 1954 and made good use of Emilia's Mazzini in Inghilterra , tells me: She has always been very kind to me ; but as in my own case, their correspondance has been very brief .
Dr. Christopher Duggan (University of Reading) writes that what be has found most useful in Emilia's publications has been the detailed descriptions of the archive holdings in the Vittoriano . In his opinion her main role has always been as a great custodian and cataloguer of Risorgimento material, and indirectly (and also directly) as a great promoter of Risorgimento scholarship . He adds: her transcription and publioation of Faiini's diary has of course been invaaluable to anyone working on later 19th Century Italy .
I entirely agree with Duggan. Emilia's impact upon British historians of Italy, though substantial, has been indirect, and therefore not easily traoeable. My greatest debt to her is the part she played (with Alberto M. Ghisalberti) in my electxon as a socio onorario of the Istituto. She also translated several of the papers which I contributed. My membership of the Istituto, through whose generosity I have been able to meet so many