The Jane Roberts Memorial Fund
Janie Roberts was passionate about the British Institute of Florence. In 1967 she studied History of Art and Italian at the Institute, and it was there that she first met Hugh. In later years she served as the British Academy’s representative on the Institute’s Board of Governors for seventeen years. Her untimely death in the Spring of 2021 was a bitter blow to all at the Institute. We mourn the loss of our dear friend.
She was particularly committed to the preservation and development of the Institute’s magnificent heritage Library. Housed in splendid rooms on the piano nobile of a 16th century palazzo, with a fine view across the river Arno by Santa Trinita, the Library has the largest collection of books in English in Italy and an important Archive of papers from the English Colony at Florence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
In memory of Janie, we have established a special Fund to ensure the long term stability of the Library at the British Institute of Florence. The Institute receives no public funding, so the target for the Jane Roberts Memorial Fund will be to raise enough money to cover the costs of running and maintaining the Library and Archives for years to come. The Library is the core of the Institute’s identity and purpose, but is also its most vulnerable asset, as it cannot generate the income needed to cover its costs.
There are three ways you can contribute to the Fund:
- Make a donation via JustGiving. This includes a facility for UK tax payers to use the Gift Aid scheme, which enhance the value of donations.
- Using the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) facility, which allows UK and US taxpayers to make tax-deductible donations.
- Send by post a cheque, made out to The British Institute of Florence, to James Stewart, Hon. Treasurer of the British Institute of Florence, at the following address:
Mr James Stewart
Hon. Treasurer of the British Institute of Florence
Old Vicarage
Knotting Road
Melchbourne
Bedford MK44 1BQ
All at the Institute are most grateful for anything you can give in Janie’s memory and her love of our Library.