Berenson Estate In Italy May Be Left to University

The villa of Bernard Berenson '87, noted art critic, will be left to Harvard upon Berenson's death, John Coolidge, Director of the Fogg Art Museum, said yesterday. Berenson is in his early nineties.

The villa, known as I Tatti, is located outside Florence. It contains 40 rooms of which 19 are devoted to a library of over 50,000 volumes. The section of the library devoted to art has been called one of the foremost in the world, while the villa itself is furnished with a large number of works of art.

Coolidge said that the villa could be used as "a research institute for all the humanities." He pointed out that although the University had many scientific outposts, Dumbarton Oaks was the only one devoted to the humanities. He said that the Berenson villa would give the University "an opportunity of creating a center of study in a place where much of our civilization was begun."

There has been some speculation that the University would not be willing to allot funds to maintain the villa. Collidge said that the uncertainties of the situation made this rumor without any basis.