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Reminiscences from the past: Giorgio Levi Della Vida and Samuel Miklos Stern: the Islamic city

ABSTRACT This paper depicts two great scholars who respected one another academically and culturally, moved in similar circles, and had in common a passionate though rational interest in human sciences and Arabic-Islamic Studies: Samuel Stern and Giorgio Levi Della Vida. In the first section, Fitzroy Morrissey and the author outline the intellectual and cultural life of Levi Della Vida, his critical but independent approach to faith and religion, the Italian intellectual environment that forged his character, and the Jewish cultural environment that surrounded him during his American exile. In the second section, the author recounts her personal encounters with Samuel Stern at Levi Della Vida’s house at Via Po in Rome. Stern had already begun his research on the Islamic city. Though separated by an age gap of almost thirty-five years, Stern came to Levi Della Vida for guidance. The article depicts the long meetings between the two scholars and their scholarly discussions, based on the author’s reminiscences. The final sections deal with Stern’s lecture at the international colloquium at All Souls College, Oxford in 1965 and his chapter in The Islamic City (1970). The paper concludes by discussing the influence of Stern’s work on future research.