Giuliano Pisani

Giuliano Pisani (Verona, 1950) is a writer, a classical philologist, a scholar of ancient Greek and Latin literature and an art historian. He graduated in ancient Greek history at Padua University with Prof. Franco Sartori, and he was full professor of Greek and Latin literature at Liceo Tito Livio in Padua. Since 2011 he has been a member of the National Italian Committee of the Promoters of Classical Culture at MIUR (Ministry of Education, University and Research). He was the technical coordinator of the first Olympiad in Classical Languages and Civilisations which was held in Venice (25-27 May 2012).

His scholarly interests are mainly centred on philosophy and ethics seen as wisdom guide. His work includes translations and studies of Plato, Plutarch (in particular Moralia, the ethic writings about the soul care, education and policy) and Marsilio Ficino.

With his book on the Arena Chapel's frescoes by Giotto, entitled I volti segreti di Giotto he has given a revolutionary interpretation of the celebrated Giotto masterpiece Giotto.

He received prestigious prizes and acknowledgments. In 1990 he won the Monselice Award Leone Traverso for his Greek translation of Plutarch's Moralia. In 1999 he won the Marcello d'Olivo Award of the city of Lignano (Humanities section). In 2000 he won the Francesco Petrarca Award of the Euganean Academy of Sciences, Literature and Arts. In 2009 he won the Bookseller's Prize of the city of Padua with his book about Giotto's frescoes in the Arena Chapel. In 2010 he won the Caorle Mare Award for Culture.

For his cultural merits in 1991 he was elected member of the Société Européenne de Culture, and since 1996 he has been a member of Lorenzo Valla foundation.

From 1983 to 1988 he has been the Secretary, and since 1988 he has been the President, of the Italian Association for Classical Culture, Padua's Delegation.

An active cultural promoter, in 1994 he created the Premio Campiello Giovani on the model of the Premio Campiello.

In 2001 he created with Virginia Baradel the Gemine Muse European format .

In 1995 he created a cycle of lectures devoted the theme of Philosophy as Therapy, which he has organized and directed ever since.

Since 1999 he has worked on the creation in Padua of the Giardino dei Giusti del Mondo (the Garden of the Righteous of the World), which was inaugurated on 5 October 2008 and which honours with a fruit plant all the people who made a stand against the genocide of the last century, all over the world .

Plutarch' studies

• Edition, with Greek text, Italian translation, introduction and notes of Moralia

Moralia I - «La serenità interiore» e altri testi sulla terapia dell'anima, La Biblioteca dell'Immagine, Pordenone 1989, pp. LIX-508 1989, pp. LIX-508 (De tranquillitate animi; De virtute et vitio; De virtute morali; An virtus doceri possit; Quomodo quis suos in virtute sentiat profectus; Animine an corporis affectiones sint peiores; De vitioso pudore; De cohibenda ira; De garrulitate; De curiositate ; De invidia et odio ; De cupiditate divitiarum)

Moralia II - L'educazione dei ragazzi, La Biblioteca dell'Immagine, Pordenone, 1990, pp. XXXVIII-451 (De liberis educandis; Quomodo adolescens poetas audire debeat ; De recta ratione audiendi ; De musica, in collaboration with Leo Citelli)

Moralia III - Etica e politica, La Biblioteca dell'Immagine, Pordenone 1992, pp. XLIII-490 (Praecepta gerendae rei publicae; An seni sit gerenda res publica; De capienda ex inimicis utilitate; De se ipsum citra invidiam laudando; Maxime cum principibus philosopho esse disserendum; Ad principem ineruditum; De unius in republica dominatione, populari statu et paucorum imperio; De exilio)

• Plutarco, Vite di Lisandro e Silla, Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, 1997 (in collaboration with Maria Gabriella Angeli Bertinelli, Mario Manfredini, Luigi Piccirilli)

• For the Mondadori Oscar he published the following texts:

• Consigli politici, 1994, pp. V-XL, 1-148 • La serenità interiore, 1995, pp. 1–95 • L'arte di ascoltare, 1995, pp. 1–90 • Come educare i figli, 1996, pp. 1–127. • Come trarre vantaggio dai nemici, 1996, pp. 1–89

Arena Chapel's studies

• L’ispirazione filosofico-teologica nella sequenza Vizi-Virtù della Cappella degli Scrovegni, «Bollettino del Museo Civico di Padova», XCIII, 2004, Milano 2005, pp. 61–97.

• Terapia umana e divina nella Cappella degli Scrovegni, «Il Governo delle cose», dir. Franco Cardini, Firenze, n. 51, anno VI, 2006, pp. 97–106.

• L’iconologia di Cristo Giudice nella Cappella degli Scrovegni di Giotto, «Bollettino del Museo Civico di Padova», XCV, 2006, pp. 45–65.

• Le allegorie della sovrapporta laterale d’accesso alla Cappella degli Scrovegni di Giotto, «Bollettino del Museo Civico di Padova», XCV, 2006, pp. 67–77.

• Il miracolo della Cappella degli Scrovegni di Giotto, in Modernitas – Festival della modernità (Milano 22-25 giugno 2006), Spirali, Milano 2006, pp. 329–57.

• Una nuova interpretazione del ciclo giottesco agli Scrovegni, «Padova e il suo territorio», XXII, 125, 2007, pp. 4–8.

• I volti segreti di Giotto. Le rivelazioni della Cappella degli Scrovegni, Rizzoli, Milano 2008.^[1]

• Il programma della Cappella degli Scrovegni, in Giotto e il Trecento, a cura di A. Tomei, Skira, Milano 2009, I – I saggi, pp. 113–127.

• La Desperatio, ultimo vizio nella Cappella degli Scrovegni di Giotto, in Disperazione. Saggi sulla condizione umana tra filosofia, scienza e arte, a cura di G. F. Frigo, Mimesis, Milano 2010, pp. 209-232.

I volti segreti di Giotto (The secret sides of Giotto)

“A wonderful intellectual adventure into the core of Giotto's inspiration and the amazing world of the Italian 14th century” (Antonia Arslan)

This book is a journey into the symbolic universe of the painter who revolutionized the concept of space. The 14th century in Italy begins with the creation of two masterpieces: the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy, devoted to Hell, and the fresco cycle of the Scrovegni Chapel or Arena Chapel(1303–1305), both works marking the start of a new era. There are works that never stop challenging our minds; works that are not forgotten with the passing of time. In his book Giuliano Pisani takes us into the heart of one of the great masterpieces of Western art: the symbol-laden frescoes of the Scrovegni Chapel. The book is a journey of discovery aimed at finding out again the pieces of a mosaic whose original meaning had been lost; deciphering the meaning of the allegories, and correcting some commonly accepted interpretations. In his frescoes Giotto shows man's salvation, a very complex project, following the guide lines from a hitherto unknown theologian who worked in the shadow: Alberto da Padova. New figures have been identified in a fundamental point of the cycle (Christ on the throne in the picture of the Final Judgement): a centaurus, a she-bear, a pike fish finally take the place of the figures that were formerly believed to symbolise the evangelists .

Other studies

• First modern edition of Marsilio Ficino, De vita libri tres, in collaboration with Albano Biondi, Biblioteca dell'Immagine, Pordenone 1991, pp. XXXV-501.

• Platone, Repubblica (antologia), in collaboration with Franco Sartori, Biblioteca Filosofica Laterza, Laterza, Bari 1995, pp. 1–301

References