The Department of Italian at Durham is committed to providing students with a challenging yet rewarding learning environment, where they will learn to master written and spoken Italian and to engage with the literary, artistic and historical traditions of one of Europe's richest and most fascinating cultures.

We have gone from strength to strength over the past years, with student numbers now surpassing 220 and six full-time members of staff. Staff research interests span the period from the thirteenth century to today, with a strong concentration of expertise in the Renaissance period. This spectrum of abilities is reflected in our curriculum which features courses in literature, art, cinema, cultural history and politics.

As well as offering language and translation courses of the highest standard, our undergraduate programme offers modules on cultural history, Dante's Divine Comedy, Renaissance literature and art and twentieth-century literature and film. At postgraduate level, we offer supervision of research MAs and PhDs in any of the areas mentioned above, as well as contributing to a number of modules on the School's taught MA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

The Department of Italian at Durham University participated in RAE08 and received detailed feedback in January 2009. 90% of all of the research submitted by Durham University staff was assessed as being at least of International Quality (2* and above) in terms of originality, significance and rigour. Of the research assessed from Italian, 90% is recognised as being at least of International Quality.  The Complete University Guide for 2010 ranked the Department of Italian at Durham University third among all Departments of Italian across the country. For details please see here. The Good University Guide for 2010 ranked the Department of Italian at Durham University fifth among all Departments of Italian across the country. For details please see here.