In Memoriam: Rachel Jacoff

Rachel Jacoff, Margaret E. Deffenbaugh and LeRoy T. Carlson Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature and Italian Studies, died on Jan. 24. Her academic path began at Cornell, where she earned her undergraduate degree in English, followed by an M.A., also in English, from Harvard. During her time at Harvard, she traveled to Italy and fell in love with the people, the culture, and the literature. Rachel’s pursuit of knowledge led her to Yale, where she studied under the esteemed Dante scholar John Freccero and received a Ph.D. in Italian in 1977. There she formed lifelong bonds with fellow scholars who would later become dear friends and distinguished academic figures in their own right: Rebecca West, Millicent Marcus, Peter Hawkins, and Nancy Vickers. Her scholarly work, including Freccero’s Dante: The Poetics of Conversion (1986), which she edited and introduced, stands as a testament to the scholarly breadth and rigor of the education she received in those formative years as well as to her deep appreciation for her mentor.

Over her long career, Rachel taught at the University of Virginia, Stanford, and Cornell, and, from 1977 to 2010, at Wellesley. She was instrumental in transforming the Italian department from a modest one-person operation into a vibrant and thriving academic community which, in its golden age, had four tenured professors and two full-time lecturers, and many majors and minors. Without the foundations Rachel provided over a long and fruitful career, Italian studies would have achieved much less than it did through the years. Her vision and leadership brought visibility and prestige to the department, ensuring that Italian studies flourished and remained a vital part of the College’s academic offerings.

Rachel also put her skills at the service of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies program, making the Dante course she taught for many years the fulcrum around which she helped to transform the program into one of the College’s most vital and creative centers of academic development and collaboration among faculty and students.

She was also renowned as a generous mentor for both generations of students and younger colleagues, who greatly appreciated and valued the encouragement and guidance she was willing to provide.

Rachel was a talented, creative, and passionate scholar who stood out for the quality of her academic publications, as well as for her rare and precious ability to bridge scholarly work across generations and contribute, in this way, to the development and innovation of one the most important branches of Italian studies in North America, namely Dante studies.

As shown by her many co-authored and co-edited publications—Lectura Dantis Americana: Inferno II (1989), The Poetry of Allusion (1990), and The Poets’ Dante: Twentieth-Century Responses (2001)—Rachel excelled both in working with scholars of her generation and in encouraging junior faculty to explore new approaches to the study of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Her contributions to the understanding of Dante’s work have been celebrated in academic circles both in the U.S. and Italy, particularly her essays on Dante’s Paradiso, which are considered by many to be her finest contributions to Dante studies.

The high quality of her work was also evident by the many fellowships she received, including from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies (I Tatti), Bellagio Center (Villa Serbelloni), the Liguria Study Center (Bogliasco), and the American Academy in Rome.

Rachel will be remembered by many for her sociability, the joy of life she instilled in everything she undertook, and the great hospitality with which she welcomed friends and colleagues in her home during the course of her life: from the house on Olive Street, when she was a graduate student at Yale; to the summer apartments in Venice, the Italian city which was most dear to her; to her home in Lewis Wharf in the North End of Boston, where she prepared exquisite dinners for friends and colleagues. She shared her home on the wharf with her cats, especially Violetta, named after Verdi’s Traviata.

Rachel will be greatly missed. She leaves a fond and lasting memory for all who knew her and were fortunate enough to enjoy her sharp intelligence and intense intellectual curiosity, her passion about current politics, and her unquestionable passion for Italy and all things Italian. Whenever she was talking about Dante, Piero della Francesca, or Italian opera, or describing a new Italian recipe she had just discovered, or planning her next trip to Italy, Rachel was happy, always showing a deep understanding of the richness and complexity of Italian culture, and a genuine affection for a country that, right from the start of her academic career, had become a second home to her.