May 21, 2001 Accolades Deanna Shemek Deanna Shemek, associate professor of literature, has been awarded a 2001-02 fellowship by the Villa I Tatti, Harvard University's Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence. Shemek's project is a literary-critical study of the letters of Isabella d'Este Gonzaga (1474-1539), marchesa of the city of Mantua and one of the most influential female figures of the Italian 16th century. Eminent historian and art critic Bernard Berenson, who owned and lived in the Villa I Tatti for the first half of the 20th century, bequeathed it to Harvard upon his death in 1959 for the establishment of an international center devoted to study of the Italian Renaissance in all its aspects. Each year, an international panel of scholars awards 15 yearlong fellowships to postdoctoral researchers in Italian Renaissance literature, art history, philosophy, history, and music. Shemek has also been awarded a summer stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities for work on this project.