In Memoriam Olga Zorzi Pugliese (1941–2025)

Professor emerita Olga Zorzi Pugliese passed away peacefully on 23 March 2025 with her family at her side. In her long and distinguished career as a professor at the University of Toronto, Olga not only influenced generations of students and colleagues who admired her to no end, but also worked tirelessly for the advancement and promotion of scholarship in general and Italian culture in particular.

Born and raised in a Friulian-speaking family in Toronto, at the age of seventeen Olga enrolled at the University of Toronto where she began to study standard Italian and continued her studies of French and Spanish. At that time, she was one of the very few young women of Italian heritage at the University of Toronto; in fact, she recalled that “a French professor commented that it was strange to see an Italian female in university.”

During her 45-year career at the University of Toronto Olga taught in the Department of Italian Studies and in the Renaissance Studies Programme (Victoria College) and served in many administrative positions, including as Emilio Goggio Chair of the Department of Italian Studies (1997-2002) and as Director of the Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies at Victoria College (2005-09). An active member of the profession, she was one of the founding members of the Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies, which in 2008 awarded her its Lifetime Achievement Award, and of the Canadian Society for Italian Studies, where she served as president (2005-08). A strong believer in the community of learning, she was an active member of many scholarly organizations, including the Renaissance Society of America, the American Association of Teachers of Italian, the Modern Languages Association, the Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium, the American Association for Italian Studies, the Sixteenth Century Studies and Conference, the Associazione Internazionale per gli Studi di Lingua e Letteratura Italiana, and more. She was also active outside the academy, especially in the Dante Alighieri Society of Toronto, the Famèe Furlane of Toronto, the Fogolârs Federation of Canada, the Centro Canadese Scuola e Cultura Italiana, and the Italian Canadian Archive Project.

Olga’s scholarly work focused on Italian Renaissance literature and culture and included major contributions on Baldassarre Castiglione and Niccolò Machiavelli, as well as many other writers. In her latter years she carried out ground-breaking research on the contribution of Italians in Canada, focusing in particular on Italian mosaicists in Canada and on the Italian-Canadian artist Albert Chiarandini. Olga also wrote her family history, tracing the ancestry of the families of her four grandparents in the Italian region of Friuli.

Some years ago, a journalist wrote about Olga’s “three souls” –– Canadian, Italian, and Friulian, and indeed that was the case. She lived and worked at the intersection of these three cultures, fostering and advancing them in all she did. Together with her late husband Guido Pugliese (1940–2016), she endowed in perpetuity a number of scholarships for study in Italy at various institutions: Victoria College (in the University of Toronto), the University of Toronto Mississauga, and Western University.  She also endowed a course in Italian Canadian Studies now offered annually in the Canadian Studies Program at University College, University of Toronto.

Olga Zorzi Pugliese embodied what is the very best in teaching, research, and collegiality. For more than half a century she contributed generously and selflessly to the study and advancement of Italian culture, be that historical in Italy or contemporary in Canada. While doing so, she struck life-long friendships with colleagues and students, enriching their lives and inspiring their work. She will be sorely missed, but her legacy will endure and inspire future generations.

Olga’s body is lying in repose at Holy Cross Catholic Funeral Home (211 Langstaff Road East, Thornhill, Ontario, L3T 3Z6). For information on visiting hours, funeral, and entombment, please visit https://www.catholic-cemeteries.ca/obituary/olga-louise-pugliese/