In February, best-selling author Patrick Bringley delivered the annual Rava Memorial Lecture, continuing a nearly three-decade tradition of bringing Italian culture to WashU. Bringley, whose memoir “All the Beauty in the World” recounts a decade at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, shared a deeply personal story: After his brother’s death, Bringley left a fast-paced career to become a museum guard, spending his days immersed in some of the world’s most beautiful works of art.

The lecture series is supported by the Paul and Silvia Rava Endowed Fund in Italian Studies, which was established by the late Silvia Rava in memory of her husband, Paul B. Rava JD ’42. The endowed fund also provides resources for the Paul and Silvia Rava Prize for Excellence in Italian Studies, which is awarded annually to the most outstanding senior project or thesis in the Italian program. 

Born in Venice in 1911, Paul Rava studied law at the University of Padua, where he later became a faculty member. Due to Mussolini’s racial laws, Rava was forced to leave his country in 1940. Within a few years, he graduated from WashU’s School of Law, which granted him one year of transfer credit when he arrived. Rava was known for his love of his native culture and was heavily involved in the St. Louis Italian Club. 

Since the lecture’s inception in 1998, members of the Rava family — including Paul and Silvia’s son, John, and his wife, Susan, MA, ’71, PhD ’77, — have been fixtures at every event. “My mother would have been very pleased with what this has meant to our family and the larger Italian community,” John Rava said.

Susan Rava, a former French lecturer in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, describes the series as a perfect tribute to her late father-in-law’s gregarious spirit. “I think he’d be over-the-moon and just thrilled with it,” she said.

Rebecca Messberger, a professor of Italian, has guided the series from its start, helping curate speakers who engage both students and the broader St. Louis community. “The Rava Memorial Lecture brings together students, faculty, different departments, and the broader St. Louis Italian American community,” she said. “We look for speakers who are accessible and can speak to a broad public.”

Over the years, the series has explored Italian history, architecture, literature, geography, drama, medicine, and art. Past talks have examined Italy during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, analyzed a 15th-century portrait of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II by Italian artist Gentile Bellini, and welcomed New Yorker writer D.T. Max to discuss his book about a Venetian family living with a rare genetic disease.

“The lectures expand our ideas about Italy and often spawn new thoughts and unforeseen collaborations,” Messberger said. “These events stay with students long after their undergraduate experience is over.”