Gabriella Ferruggia Codignola passed away on January 7, 2026, in Milan, Italy, where she had lived since 2016. Born in Catania, Sicily, in 1948—and a true Sicilian at heart—Gabriella studied at the Towers Convent School of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in Upper Beeding, West Sussex, England, and at Università di Roma, where she specialized in classics. She then pursued studies as a Fulbright-Hays Scholar at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. She taught American literature at universities in Salerno, Pisa, Rome, and Genoa, and also held visiting fellowships at the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, the University of Virginia, and the City University of New York. A wonderful yet unassuming teacher, she was loved by her students.
She began her career with an interest in Black theater and LeRoi Jones, and then moved on to so-called U.S. proletarian literature, including Michael Gold, proving, among other things, that American “proletarian” authors were far from adhering to Moscow directives. Finding much of their writing nonetheless constrained by ideology and therefore limited in literary quality, she later wrote on John Dos Passos and women authors such as Katherine Anne Porter, Grace Paley, Ann Petry, Anzia Yezierska, and Edith Wharton.
Gabriella loved classical music and had an uncommon passion for ballroom dancing and 20th-century composers. An opera buff, she held season tickets to Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, and Teatro alla Scala in Milan—though she was unable to sing even a note of Stille Nacht or Frère Jacques. Friends and colleagues appreciated her refined intelligence, subtle irony, elegant deportment, and the softness of her voice.
She is survived by her husband of 53 years, Luca Codignola, a Cushwa Center senior fellow since 2016, and by her daughter Federica Codignola, professor of marketing at Università di Milano-Bicocca.
Luca Codignola is senior fellow at the Cushwa Center, where he chairs the center’s Rome Advisory Committee, and adjunct professor at Saint Mary’s University, Canada.
This tribute appears in the spring 2026 issue of the American Catholic Studies Newsletter.