Vincenzo Di Benedetto

Vincenzo Di Benedetto
Born (1934-01-12)12 January 1934
Altomonte, Calabria
Died 20 July 2013(2013-07-20) (aged 79)
Pisa
Nationality Italy
Fields Classical scholars
Alma mater University of Pisa
Academic advisors Aurelio Peretti, Augusto Campana, Alessandro Perosa, Ignazio Cazzaniga, Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli, Vittorio Bartoletti, Eduard Fraenkel[1]
Notable students Luigi Battezzato, Franco Ferrari, Alessandro Lami, Daniela Manetti, Maria Chiara Martinelli, Enrico Medda, Maria Pia Pattoni, Amneris Roselli

Vincenzo Di Benedetto (12 January 1934 – 19 or 20 July 2013) was an Italian classical philologist.

Life

Born to the tailor Saverio Di Benedetto and his wife Maria Gaetana (née Santoro) he grew up in Saracena (Calabria) and acquired a sound knowledge of Latin and Classical Greek at the Liceo Classico in Castrovillari.[2] Having received a scholarship from the Scuola Normale Superiore, he went on to study from 1952 to 1958 in Pisa and Oxford (Corpus Christi College). Apart from his academic mentors, he also acknowledged the influence of his friend, Latinist Sebastiano Timpanaro and his mother, historian of philosophy Maria Timpanaro Cardini.[3] From 1969 onwards until his retirement in 2006 he taught Greek literature at the University of Pisa, and, from 1971 until 1993, Classical Philology at the Scuola Normale. In 1996, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and was bound to a wheelchair since 2006. Despite this, he managed to continue working until shortly before his death.[4]

On May 14, 1972, he married philologist Diana Fiorini; their son Saverio was born on November 27, 1972.

Achievements

His areas of expertise included the history of Greek grammar, Greek tragedy, the so-called Hippocratic Corpus, Sappho, and the Homeric epics, but also the works of Dante, Foscolo, and Manzoni. He published numerous monographs as well as bilingual editions, intended both for a larger public and experts. A household name in his native Italy, he never quite achieved the international recognition he deserved, although his last major work, a bilingual commented edition of the Odyssey (2010), received excellent reviews, such as by Barbara Graziosi, who referred to the book as "a monumental achievement[5]“. Even the selection of his minor works, titled Il richiamo del testo and published by Riccardo Di Donato in 2007, takes up four weighty volumes, containing some of his most important insights, such as his proof that Aristotle, when quoting his sources, had been far more reliable than had hitherto been assumed.[6]

Selection of Works

References

  1. ↑ Vincenzo Di Benedetto, Ricordo di Eduard Fraenkel, Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore serie IV, 5, 2001, 1-20
  2. ↑ Vincenzo Di Benedetto, Ricordo di Polinnia, Lexis 19, 2001, 341-345.
  3. ↑ Vincenzo Di Benedetto, Come ricordo Sebastiano Timpanaro, jr., Athenet online 6, 2002 (http://unipi.it/athenet1-14/06/articoli/0006TimpanaroA.html)
  4. ↑ Franco Ferrari, Un profilo di Vincenzo Di Benedetto, Rivista di Filologia ed Istruzione Classica 2014, 218-242
  5. ↑ Barbara Graziosi, Rev. Di Benedetto, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2011.11.36
  6. ↑ Vincenzo Di Benedetto, La citazione di Polibo nella Historia Animalium di Aristotele, in: Studi classici in onore di Quintino Cataudella, Catania 1972, Bd.II, 225-233
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