Scottish-Italian links celebrated with new scholarship

Classical music star Nicola Benedetti is a patron of the scholarship fund

A scholarship backed by Nicola Benedetti and a grant for a research centre into Italian immigration in Scotland are being awarded.

The Scottish-Italian classical music star is a patron of the University of Edinburgh scheme.

It provides scholarships for postgraduate Italian studies and the first recipient is studying the work of writer Carlo Emilio Gadda.

A grant from the Carnegie Trust will help create the new research centre.

The first beneficiary of the Nicola Benedetti Scholarship Fund will collect her award at a ceremony in the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh on Saturday.

At the same ceremony, the results of the Gadda Prize essay competition - open to Scottish secondary pupils who are studying Italian - will be announced.

The writers of the three best essays will be invited to attend a two-day Gadda conference next summer at Montecassino, south of Rome, where Ms Benedetti will play.

A further highlight will be the award of a £40,000 grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland to help set up a research centre - the first of its kind - for the study of Italian migration to Scotland.

The centre, which will be based at the University of Edinburgh, will explore Italian migration to Scotland.

It will be done through a variety of projects, including a documentary about the last surviving Scottish-Italians to have lived through World War II.