Generations of Stanford students are passionate about Italy, its rich food, the languid rhythm of its language, the warmth of its citizenry. Their tour guide for this discovery was Annamaria Napolitano, whose courses on her native country were among Stanford’s most popular for three decades.
Napolitano, who retired December 31 as a senior lecturer, died on February 13, two days shy of her 69th birthday and 18 months after being diagnosed with liver cancer.
Napolitano, born in Naples, was the daughter of a father who sold antiques and a homemaker mother. After studying in Italy, Napolitano and her husband, Pietro, moved to California, where she began to make her mark at Stanford.
She helped the University establish the theme residence La Casa Italiana, in 1976, where students could immerse themselves in language, food and culture. She wrote a textbook on Italian grammar used around the world and published two books of poetry. She founded two private language schools.
Napolitano’s energy and outgoing nature impressed her colleagues. “A petite dynamo,” recalls Maria Devine, a fellow lecturer. Former students remember homemade pasta at Napolitano’s dining-room table, and she hosted 10 for Christmas dinner just weeks before her death.
Ann O’Neil Baskins, ’77, now the head lawyer for Hewlett-Packard, was among the first residents of Casa Italiana. She and more than a half-dozen others who went to Florence on a Stanford program with Napolitano dined regularly with their former teacher during her final year. Napolitano jokingly called them “il grupo”—although no such word exists in Italian. It was a reminder to Baskins of how tolerant Napolitano was when students in the dorm butchered her beloved native tongue.
Napolitano, who had been widowed in 1988, married her longtime beau, Mario Fusco, last July. Other survivors include a brother, Mario de Nicolais, and two nieces.
