An academic of vast erudition

Professor Peter Vassallo writes:

I first met Joe Cremona in Cambridge 15 years ago when I attended the Byron Bicentenary Conference at Trinity College. He had courteously invited me to dinner at Trinity Hall (of which he was Senior Fellow) and introduced me to the Master and the Fellows before we proceeded to high table.

Joe was a highly respected scholar who taught Romance Philology in the Department of Modern Languages. I felt privileged to be his friend. He was an academic of vast erudition who wore his learning lightly. He had in fact a refined sense of humour with a touch of that gentle, impish irony which characterises many a Cambridge don.

He later attended, as a main speaker, one of the conferences I had organised at the University on "Literary and Cultural Relations between England and Italy", a topic which he found absorbing. The paper he delivered, on Italian as a lingua franca in the 17th century, was well- received by all the delegates.

He graciously accepted nomination as a member of the advisory board of the Journal of Anglo-Italian Studies, and some time later he was appointed visiting external examiner in the Faculty of Arts of this University.

He visited Malta frequently and became increasingly interested in Maltese placenames and etymology. We always met when he came over and we obviously enjoyed each other's company and conversation.

I recall that once, after a meal in a trattoria in Valletta, our conversation veered onto the uncomfortable subject of 'quella brutta Sorella Morte'. He jokingly remarked that he hoped her unwelcome visit would be abrupt. And that is the way things turned out. He died suddenly of heart failure (last month) in a restaurant while celebrating his feast day.