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Breach of All Size: Small Stories on Ulysses, Love, and Venice

Catherine Kovesi • Mar 07, 2022

A collection of Flash Fiction, inspired by James Joyce's Ulysses and set in the city of Venice, has just been published by the city of Wellington's The  Cuba Press, proudly supported by one of the ACIS 2021 Publishing Grants. Breach of All Size is a book celebrating and commemorating bridges, breaches, and anniversaries in which every aspect of the publication  – its content as well as its presentation – is unified by a commitment to the endeavour at hand.


  • 2021 marked 1,600 years since the legendary foundation of the city of Venice  in 421.
  • 2022 marks 100 years since the publication of James Joyce's work Ulysses, in 1922.

What, you might ask, do these two anniversaries have to do with each other? Where is the bridge between the two? And what might the bridge be between Venice and ... Aotearoa/New Zealand?

Enter the fertile minds of Marco Sonzogni and Michelle Evy.


James Joyce did not spend much time in the city of Venice, and its impression upon him seems not wholly remarkable. He famously ridiculed the Bridge of Sighs as the 'Breach of All Size' in Finnegan's Wake (136.24). For Sonzogni and Evy, however, the bridging of these two anniversaries was worth exploring. Added impetus came from the discovery that, on Captain James Cook's Endeavour, was a Venetian, Antonio Ponto, who left England in 1768 and arrived in the great uncharted southern lands in October 1769.


Sonzogni and Evy gave 36 Aotearoan writers either the opening or concluding lines from each of the 18 chapters of Ulysses. The only brief? To use these lines as the opener to a story on love, set in Venice, using 421 words – no more, no less. The main font chosen for the work is called 'Venice'; and the Australian designer of its cover, Matthew Revert, rendered the authors' names in a font called Calligraphic 421. As for his chosen colour scheme? the dark red is CMYK colour#421421 and the grey is Pantone colour 421. You will never again have an excuse to forget the founding year of Venice.

With a preface by Catherine Kovesi, and an introduction by Marco Sonzogni, the publication has stories by:
Anita Arlov • Ben Brown • Diane Brown • Gina Cole  • Rijula Das • Lynley Edmeades • Alison Glenny  • Trish Gribben • Jordan Hamel • Jenna Heller • Lloyd Jones  • Anne Kennedy • Erik Kennedy • Fiona Kidman • Kerry Lane  • Wes Lee • Renee Liang • Emer Lyons • Becky Manawatu  •
S J Mannion • Selina Tusitala Marsh • Paula Morris  • Emma Neale • James Norcliffe • Patrick Pink • Karen Phillips  • Sudha Rao • Renée • Harry Ricketts • Jack Ross  • Tracey Slaughter • Apirana Taylor • Catherine Trundle  • Hester Ullyart • Ian Wedde • Sophia Wilson 

New Subjects and Stories of Baroque Art: Hamilton Gallery

04 Mar, 2024
Open until 14 April 2024, the exhibition Emerging From Darkness: Faith, Emotion and The Body in the Baroque is presented at Victoria's Hamilton Gallery (on the unceded lands of the Eastern Maar and Gunditjmara peoples), in partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Unprecedented, and monumental in scope, Emerging From Darkness brings together an exceptional group of works from public and private collections in Australia. It was curated by Associate Professor David R. Marshall , Principal Fellow in Art History at the University of Melbourne, Dr Lisa Beaven , Adjunct Senior Research at La Trobe University, and Laurie Benson , Senior Curator of International Art at the NGV. Here two curators explain some of the project’s background and aims.

In Podcast: 1873–2023, Alessandro Manzoni’s Legacy

27 Oct, 2023
In Italy this year there has been no shortage of Manzoni celebrations, particularly in Milan . And in Australasia? Dr Stefano Bona , Lecturer in Italian Studies at Flinders University, Adelaide, on the lands of the Kauna nation, has lately been involved in creating a ‘special miniseries’ of radio programmes about Alessandro Manzoni. Now available for listening on demand are two longform interviews with Stefano Pratola at Radio Italiana 531 AM. Here Stefano Bona shares some background to this podcast project.

Awarded: Two ACIS Prizes, Two Notable Publications

14 Sep, 2023
Announcing, with great pleasure, the winners of the 2023 ACIS Publication Prize for an established scholar, and the 2023 Jo-Anne Duggan Prize. ACIS awards both prizes every two years . In this case, each winning publication addresses the theme of mobility – a fast-evolving direction in Italian Studies research – and each brings forward a topic with clear contemporary significance.

Save the Date: ACIS 12th Biennial Conference, 3–6 July 2024

04 Sep, 2023
The 12th Biennial Conference of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies will be held at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country, from Wednesday 3 July to Saturday 6 July 2024. The conference theme is ‘Italian Studies for Global Challenges: Transdisciplinary Conversations’.

Announcing the 2023 ACIS Save Venice Fellow

24 Aug, 2023
Open to postgraduate and early career researchers, since 2018 the ACIS Save Venice Fellowship programme has been enlivening close links between Australasia and the city of Venice. Fellowship applications were suspended in 2022, for pandemic-related reasons. So it is a special pleasure to announce that Brigette De Poi has been awarded an ACIS Save Venice Fellowship for 2023. Already living in Venice to focus on her PhD project, Brigette shares some first reflections on her contact with Save Venice thus far.

Looking for Forgetting in the Archive

08 Aug, 2023
Which memories are allowed to circulate in a particular culture – and which are relegated or silenced? What political logic is at play when a certain way of remembering is spelt out, even imposed? Matthew Topp was awarded an ACIS Postgraduate Scholarship in 2020, to source archival records for his doctoral thesis, which has the working title ‘ Ars Oblivionalis : A Study of Cultural Forgetting in Renaissance Italy’. Now returned from fieldwork, he shares a brief account of his PhD project and travels.

Two early career scholars reflect on their time as ACIS Save Venice Fellows

By Catherine Kovesi • 02 Apr, 2023
Two promising early career scholars – Lauren Murphy and Julia Pelosi-Thorpe – were the recipients of ACIS Save Venice Fellowships. Delayed due to COVID travel restrictions, they were finally able to access their Fellowships in 2022. Here they both reflect on their time in Venice and the benefits of the Fellowship to their respective research projects.

Announcing a new Chair and new team at the helm of ACIS

By Catherine Kovesi • 29 Mar, 2023
ACIS is delighted to announce that Professor Andrea Rizzi has been appointed the new Chair of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies. He leads a renewed Management Committee with several new appointees who start their terms of office this year.

ACIS Postgraduate Scholarship Winners 2023

By Catherine Kovesi • 30 Jan, 2023
After a hiatus of three years due to travel restrictions, ACIS is delighted once again to be able to offer its Postgraduate Scholarships for Research in Italy. Two promising postgraduate students have been awarded scholarships in the current round: Brigette De Poi and Laura Di Blasi.
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