Annali della Facoltà di Studi Umanistici dell'Università degli Studi di Milano. Acme aims to contribute to the study of the humanities and the deepening of research, with the help of recognized masters and enhancing the contribution of young and promising scholars who study in deep specific philological and philosophical, historical and artistic aspects.
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Copyright (c) 2026 pentestreader https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Donato Pirovano, Dante e il mare, Roma, Donzelli Editore, 2025, pp. XIV, 298, 7
Review of the volume: Donato Pirovano, Dante e il mare, Roma, Donzelli Editore, 2025, pp. XIV, 298, 7.
Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
On Michael Psellos’ βασιλικοὶ λόγοι: propaedeutic notes to a new critic edition
The twenty-one βασιλικοὶ λόγοι written and pronounced by Michael Psellos (1018 – 1078), unedited until the second half of 19th century, saw various editiones principes until the 1980s; they were then collected in an unique Teubner volume in 1994, by George T. Dennis, under the title of Orationes panegyricae; although this volume is the Psellian panegyrics’ edition of reference nowadays, it presents several problems: orations’ order out of phase with actual timeline, the absence of other five orations (anyway collected in the Oratoria minora by Littlewood), very frequent wrong readings from manuscripts and often non-relevant apparatus fontium with author’s achievements. With the help of the numerous studies on Psellos published during the last twenty years, the purpose of this paper is to provide a preparatory study to a new critic edition, by highlighting and overcoming all the problems of the previous Teubner editions.
Copyright (c) 2024 Alberto Longhi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Some remarks on the alleged "φυλλοβολια" in Ar. fr. 264 K.-A.
This brief note discusses the previous interpretations proposed for the list of dishes in Ar. fr. 264 K.-A.. By examining the sources provided by the scholars (Suet. Nero 25; Eratosth. FGrHist 14; Plut. Glor. Ath. 6, 349a 10-13), it is argued that the fragment is neither centered on an unspecified ritual nor on the habit of φυλλοβολία. A figured interpretation of the fragment in a meta-literary sense is eventually recommended.
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De Nomine Rhythmi. Aspects of a Mythographical Excerpt among Etymology, Music, and Metrics
This paper proposes, starting from a detailed analysis of the mythological contents exposed in the tenth chapter of the so-called Fragmentum Censorini (= Nikokrates, FGrHist and BNJ2 376 F 4), a new contextualisation of the excerpt within Pseudo Censorinus’ musical and metrical doctrine.
Copyright (c) 2024 Andrea Pizzotti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
(E)rudimentum doctrinae: a nomenclature for teaching. With an appendix on the title of the papias lexicon
The major work of Gilbert of Tournai is intriguingly titled with a double name: "Rudimentum/ Erudimentum Doctrinae." In the preface, Gilbert mentions this dual designation but does not provide further clarification on its significance. This issue has mostly gone unnoticed, yet the rarity of the term "erudimentum" warrants a deeper examination beyond the assumption of a mere paronomastic play. Therefore, this paper first aims to explore the meanings associated with the term and then to understand its significance concerning with the whole title of Gilbert's work and his programmatic intentions. Additionally, it will consider the only known precedent he may have drawn from, which is the "Elementarium Doctrinae (E)rudimentum" by Papias. For various reasons, the title of Papias's work has also sparked considerable debate among scholars. However, a comparison of the most authoritative versions of the "Elementarium," provided in the appendix, offers a definitive resolution regarding the actual title of this lexicon.
Copyright (c) 2024 Francesca Artemisio https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Multiple Greek Citizenships in the imperial age. Aspects of communication between speaker and audience in Dio Chrysostom
This paper discusses the question of multiple Greek citizenships in the imperial age by taking, as a case study, selected passages from the Bithynian orations of Dio Chrysostom. These passages shed light on the public and institutional settings and contexts in which acquired citizenships, far from being perceived simply as honorific titles, caused difficulties and set limits and challenges for their holders: the case of Dio and his sophisticated attempts to “juggle” before the assemblies and councils of Bithynian cities, (often rival cities), is a clear example of this.
Copyright (c) 2024 Lucia Cecchet https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Fictile votive statuines of Eros from the Sanctuary of Fondo Patturelli: some considerations
Fondo Patturelli places the city of Capua among those sanctuary complexes in which the enormous quantity of votive heritage collected, over ten thousand pieces, allows us to know and reconstruct, not without difficulty, the religious and votive panorama of this sacred area closely connected to the religious, social and territorial life of the Campania community. The god Eros appears inside the repertoire of exceptional numerical consistency and typological variety of the multiple representations of divinities that over time flank the maternal and curotrophic goddess of the archaic age. Apparently, Eros plays a secondary role, widespread between the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, but the quantity of attestations bringing a considerable number of testimonies, even outside the Campania region, requires a specific study of this god with the purpose of delineating his figure in the most complete way. The general context, also in relation to other clay categories present in the Fondo Patturelli, suggests its specific vocation and seems to confirm its role as intimately connected to the biological and social protection of the community, especially women, to guarantee a fundamental continuity.
Copyright (c) 2024 Lucrezia Marantonio https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Italianisms in Québec terminology: a gastronomic exploration of the Grand dictionnaire terminologique
The study of lexical borrowings from Italian to French has produced a large body of literature focusing mainly on France. But what about Italianisms in other geographical varieties of French? The development of differential lexicography, which describes lexical units specific to the various French-speaking areas, has led to the creation of a large corpus which now makes it possible to direct this research towards extra-hexagonal vocabularies. The Quebec domain is of particular interest, as we now have a variety of lexicographical descriptions integrating differential, descriptive and terminological approaches. An analysis of the semantic domain relating to food in the GDT will enable us to examine the innovative elements that Italian brings to Quebec French and the assimilation strategies attested in this variety of language. This research will also allow us to reflect on the ways in which Italian can still prove to be an enriching language for French, particularly as it expands outside France.
Revolutionary Universalism in 19th-century Haitian Poetry. An Ideological Reappropriation
As part of the recent attempts to rediscover and rehabilitate the historical and literary context of 19th-century Haiti, this article aims to explore the expression of revolutionary universalism in Haitian poets of the 19th century, offering a new perspective on their use of classical imagery. It seeks to reconsider the traditional perception of these poets to reveal the often-ignored ideological depth of their writings, rooted in the republican values of the Enlightenment. In response to the racist accusations from the Metropole – which reduce the insurrection that led to the country’s declaration of Independence in 1804 to a matter of race – the Haitian poets adopted an epic and nationalist imagery that claimed an explicit connection with the universalism of the French Revolution. This imagery is not a mere stylistic borrowing, but a committed adherence to the universal ideals of the République, as well as a proof of the active role of Haitian intellectuals in the international debate on the abolition of slavery. After a description of the historical and political contextualization in which Haiti’s national poetry was born and developed, this study will focus on the analysis of the revolutionary iconography in the early Haitian poetic production.
The time of repetition in the violin music of H. I. F. von Biber and C. A. Lonati
The principle of repetition plays a fundamental role in every form of musical expression and represent one of the most common and effective compositional expedients. Oscillating between stasis and continuous movement, the iterative processes and modular sequences decisively influence the perception of space and time and challenge the listener’s expectations, creating labyrinthine and obsessive architectures, and hypnotic modules, which generate an emotional impact. The essay examines in an interdisciplinary perspective the systematic use of repetition in the violin music of two of the greatest violinist-composers active in the late seventeenth century in the area straddling the Alps: Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704) and Carlo Ambrogio Lonati (c. 1645-post1701). The two composers, employing similar or different approaches, exploited repetition both to challenge the performer’s executive expertise and to consolidate, disintegrate or remodulate the formal and temporal architecture of the pieces, producing ‘bizarre’ and ingenious dispositions of the episodes. The analysis of some relevant examples and the comparison between the two composers will permit to highlight a range of compositional attitudes and expedients and will offer new interpretation keys, also applicable to other musical repertoires and areas of knowledge.
More than thirty years of dialogue: the correspondence between Francesco Arcangeli and Vittorio Sereni
The study of the epistolary report elapsed between Francesco Arcangeli and Vittorio Sereni, contributes to specify some cultural and emotive characteristics of the two intellectuals’ personalities. In more than thirty years of frank and deep dialogue, capable of through the distressing atmosphere of the fascism already in decline, the drama of the world war and the rebirth, at least apparent, of the country, emerge, letter by letter, the continuous loyalty of the two corresponding – despite their diversity of opinion, both in literary and figurative/pictorial field- to the reasons of their own subjectivity, in a honest, tiring and lonely distancing from every convenience choice that wouldn’t be participated, and then morally experienced, with deep personal belief.
Rorgo Fretellus and the two redactions of Descriptio de locis sanctis
This paper presents and discusses the poor biographical data available on Rorgo Fretellus, the author of a successful topography of the Holy Land, dated back to the first half of the 12th century (Descriptio de locis sanctis). It also offers an overview of the two known redactions of the Descriptio, framing the main aspects related to their manuscript tradition, their reception and their publishing history. While the first redaction, dedicated to the Bohemian bishop Henry Sdyck, is preserved in six codices, the second, which is destined for the Spanish earl Rodrigo of Toledo and whose Fretellian authorship is discussed and confirmed in this paper, enjoyed greater success: it is transmitted by forty-two witnesses and constitutes the source of subsequent geographical works regarding the Holy Land. A comparison of the critical texts of the two prologues is provided in the appendix, in order to offer an insight into the changes made from the first to the second version of the Descriptio.
Jacques du Pont and the Cinquanta stanze del Bembo: musical and literary aspects
In the field of musicology, among Pietro Bembo’s literary output only the Prose della volgar lingua constantly attracted the attention of scholars, who, since the end of the 1960s, have questioned the appropriateness of applying the linguistic theories enunciated therein to the secular music works of the time. Bembo’s Rime and Stanze, instead, aroused little interest, passing almost unnoticed, despite being set to music by a number of composers throughout the sixteenth century. In an attempt to fill at least part of this gap, this contribution focuses on the Cinquanta stanze del Bembo by Jacques du Pont, a collection that is particularly significant for the circumstances related to its genesis and, above all, for the singularity of some textual variants that render it a very intriguing source for the reconstruction of the literary tradition of Bembo’s poem.
Among Giacinto Carena's papers. Travel diaries and preparatory notes for his Prontuario di vocaboli
The research conducted among the private papers of the Piedmontese lexicographer Giacinto Carena, preserved at the Academy of Sciences of Turin, made it possible to trace a vast quantity of unpublished materials of historical-linguistic interest. In addition to the correspondence (with around 200 correspondents, including Manzoni, who sent him the well-known letter Sulla lingua italiana, Cherubini, Cantù, Gherardini), the travel diaries are preserved, which show the evolution of his interests in scientific nomenclature , and the preparatory notes for the Prontuario di vocaboli that Carena published in 1846 and 1853 and which was followed by a third posthumous part in 1860. The essay intends to give an account of the material present in the Carena collection, trying to capture the different phases of his lexicological and onomasiological study in the diaries and private writings; how his idea of composing a vocabulary based on the Tuscan language was formed; with what methods he collected the information from the voice of his interlocutors; how he arranged the material collected during numerous field explorations.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline playwright: poetics at the service of classical theatre
This contribution focuses on Louis-Ferdinand Céline's dramatic production, consisting of two plays written in 1927 (L'Église and Progrès). The aim of this study is to investigate the function of the theatre for the author, through a literary analysis of the two plays. This production proved to be a first attempt at social denunciation, with which readers have been familiar since Voyage. Furthermore, the article explores the possible influences that led Céline to write for the theatre. By reading the correspondence we discover that Céline was an estimator of French comedy, and particularly that of Molière. The result is an analysis that allows us to associate his production with that of the Théâtre classique of the 17th century. Céline would therefore, quite hypothetically, have been inspired by the famous playwright's comédies-ballets, thus reviving the classics of French literature on the contemporary stage.
Margherita Margani: Epigraphist Headmaster. Remarks on a Greek Epitaph from the Hyblean Area
These pages are dedicated to an epigraphic study carried out by Margherita Margani on a funerary stela containing an elegiac couplet, preserved in the Museo Archeologico Ibleo. The text of the epitaph, written by a son who devoutly buried his parents in the 6th century B.C., has been the subject of debate since 1942, mainly because of the anthroponyms it contains. Margherita Margani, a secondary school teacher and headmaster in Comiso and Ragusa, was able to conjecture readings that were adopted independently by renowned scholars in later years.
Premessa al volume 76, numero 1-2, 2023.
Pueri and Pastoral Community in Virgil's Eclogues
In Virgil’s Eclogues young people, who are massively present already in Theocritus, appear always alongside older people. The elders, or senes, are authoritative representatives of the pastoral community, often as repositories of an illustrious poetic tradition. The pueri are already poets, but they seek or receive full poetic acknowledgment from the community by the mouth of the seniores. This consecration is sometimes sealed by the delivery of the Pan flute and consequently of the poetic legacy of its previous possessor. It is a moment of passage in which the young becomes a fully-fledged member of the adult community and the heir of its bucolic tradition: in this way, the generational continuity ensures the continuity of the poetic tradition. While in the Aeneid the premature death of many pueri aspiring to appear like viri challenges the validity of this process, in the Eclogues the hope for continuity appears as the only way through which the community can pursue its own balance, albeit fragile.
Vittorio Alfieri's Panegyric of Pliny to Trajan: Critical Reconnaissance and New Perspectives
This paper presents a critical recognition of Vittorio Alfieri’s Panegirico di Plinio a Trajano from the early decades of the 20th century to the 2000s. The work was long considered as a literary exercise, and it was only from the 1980s onwards, thanks to Giuseppe Rando’s studies, that its political and historical value within Alfieri’s work was recognised. This study will therefore attempt to offer an overview of the criticism of the work, analysing the evolution of studies on the Panegirico and finally highlighting new perspectives and research paths that have not yet been fully investigated.
Pindar's Olympian 13 between Occasion and Re-performance
Pindar’s Olympian 13, dedicated to Xenophon of Corinth, displays two macroscopic features: first, extensive catalogues of the victories achieved by Xenophon’s family; and second, an accumulation of myths closely related with the city of Corinth, namely the myths of Sisyphos, Medea, Glaukos, and Bellerophon. This connection with Corinth has been strongly emphasized, especially with regard to the Oligaithidai family and to the myths of Medea and Sisyphos reported in Eumelos’ lost poem Korinthiaká. Nevertheless, the ode seems to display typical devices for entertaining secondary audiences. I argue that Pindar’s accounts of myths are deliberately generic, in order to allow for possible re-performance at festivals and symposia. On the other hand, the accuracy of the victories catalogue could also have a rhetorical function, in reperformance scenarios, in order to give future listeners the feeling of being in the place of the first performance (a device often referred to as “pseudo-intimacy”).
The Ars Poetica in Europe and Italy: Perspectives on Fortune and Tradition of the Horatian Epistle in the 18th and 19th Centuries
This article aims to explore the field of the tradition of Horace’s Epistle to the Pisons in Europe and Italy between XVIII and XIX centuries, paying particular attention to the historical and cultural background along with the specific reception context. Due to the breadth of the subject, which would require a more articulate examination than the one possible here, the perspective will be limited to specific aspects. The paper considers primarily the different mechanisms of translation and poetical imitation which affect the diffusion of Horace’s production as a whole. Among those modalities it is possible to find works related to biographical research, but also parodies and artistic (such as musical or pictorial) reproductions. At this point, the analysis focuses specifically on the Ars Poetica and follows the lines of its diffusion. It examines, ultimately, the Italian context, where the reception of this Latin work is directly related to the coeval linguistic debate. Famous Italian intellectuals as well as exponents of literary movements (for instance Arcadia), but also teachers – always interested in providing their students with a correct version of the text – and common admirers seem to strongly perceive Horace’s impact. As a conclusion for this article, which would be otherwise merely descriptive, a hypothesis is displayed, in order to try to explain the potential relation between the different reception contexts characterizing each of the two centuries considered. Indeed, according to the information available, an “educative lineage” from Arcadians to teachers can be noticed, which results in a continuity of interests.
Genealogy of an Existential Model: the Schlemihl Figure Ii Rahel Varnhagen, Hannah Arendt and Lea Ritter Santini
The purpose of this contribution is to shed light on the Jewish figure of the Schlemihl, in terms of how it has come to assume, in the discourses of Rahel Varnhagen, Hannah Arendt and Lea Ritter Santini, the extra-literary function of a recognition device and existential schema. It is in the triangulation of the speeches and lives of these three intellectuals, each in her own way belonging to German culture, that the figure of Schlemihl has exemplarily unfolded its genetic force, as a metaphor for a destiny in which, from the moment of its literary appearance in the society of early 19th-century Berlin salons thanks to Adelbert von Chamisso, those who had to carve out their lives on the basis of uprooting and a primal exclusion recognised themselves. In what could be understood as a genealogy, the reference to the Schlemihl of Rahel Varnhagen, Hannah Arendt and Lea Ritter Santini conveys the shared sense of a multifaceted undergoing and acting on uprooting, within the framework of a prismatic discourse - in the form of letters, essays and poems - that in feeding on life and thought has been able to recount marginality in its different and contiguous forms.
Bergomum. Indigenous names and forms of integration on local inscriptions
This paper deals with the problem of interactions between Roman citizens and indigenous people in the territory of Bergomum, a municipium in regio xi - Transpadana, through the study of significant onomastic formulae appearing in some inscriptions. In particular, the analysis of the epigraphic evidence will work on a double track, taking into account indigenous onomastic structures – which we can still find in the first century CE, despite the fact that Caesar granted citizenship to Transpadana in the middle of the first century BCE – together with names in the typically Roman form of the tria nomina, which show a Celtic origin and a certain persistence of local customs. Thus, the evidence provided by onomastics will be useful for investigating how the “indigenous” inhabitants of Bergomum dealt with the progressive Romanization of their territory and through what mechanisms they were integrated into the Roman social structure. This will also be done through a comparison with nearby realities (such as the Colonia Civica Augusta Brixia).
Galen as a reader of the buono accoglitor del quale (Inf., IV, 139): about some Dioscorides' quotes in the Galenic corpus
In the Corpus Galenicum there are many passages which mention Dioscorides and his work, De materia medica. Sometimes there are minimal differences concerning the contents or erudite comments by Galen. Moreover, there are some less explicit passages, whose source could be De materia medica. This is clear from some n-grams found in both authors, the one source text and the other target text. By examining the more or less explicit quotations of Dioscorides’ work in Galen, this contribution intends to show the influence of il buono accoglitor del quale in Galen’s writings and his relationship with Dioscorides.
construction ‘εἶναι + participle’ in Homeric Greek: prototype analysis and the morphosyntax-semantics interface
This contribution addresses the periphrasis ‘εἶναι + participle’ in Homeric Greek at the interface between morphosyntax and semantics. The data are examined with reference to the theoretical framework elaborated by Nardi and Romagno (2022), who regard the Ancient Greek εἶναι-periphrasis as a prototype category: according to this view, the superordinate category ‘εἶναι + participle’ includes two formally different, but functionally equivalent manifestations, a pattern with an expressed copula, i.e. a periphrasis tout-court, and a pattern with no overt copula, i.e. a predicative participle (basically, a participle functioning as a finite form). This investigation aims to assess if factors underlying or determining the usage of these participial constructions in Homeric Greek can be singled out. The analysis of the data individuated in the Homeric poems shows that the participial constructions encode the specific function of signifying the state, either inherent or attained, of the subject of the predicate, thus constituting a (more or less free) alternative to the original perfect (cfr. Romagno 2005).
Prometheus and fate in the name: [Aesch.] Pr. 86
This paper deals with the reading προμηθέως to be find at the end of line 86 from Aeschylus’ (?) Prometheus. The aim is to appreciate the genuineness of the paradosis, compared to Peter Elsmley’s emendation προμηθίας.
The art-historical interests of Francesco Saverio Quadrio
The article addresses the historical-artistic interests of the scholar and historian Francesco Saverio Quadrio (Ponte in Valtellina 1695-Milan 1756). Quadrio is known especially for his research history of the poetry and his studies on his native land, the Valtellina. In his books he has collected and combined various information on artists and works of art. Not all the information he has collected is reliable, but his studies were nevertheless one of the sources for updating important volumes for their great international circulation, such as the studies of Johann Caspar Füssli or the famous Dictionary of Painters Pilkington. An effort has been made to understand Quadrio’s working method, investigating the origin of his hypotheses, but also the effects of these in successive historiography.
Neck, shoulder, belly, and foot. Some thoughts on the anatomy of the vessels
This paper deals with one of the most transversal phenomena in numerous languages, both ancient and modern: the designation of the different parts of a vase with the same lexicon used for the parts of the human body. Focusing on four of the most commonly used modern languages in archaeological bibliography (Italian, English, French and German) and on the two classical languages par excellence (Greek and Latin), the work provides an overview of the lexicon used and the metaphors or rhetorical figures that include the figure of the vase and its parts in the ancient and modern world. In a second moment, case studies are presented, again referring to the ancient and contemporary world: on the one hand, the association of vases with the human body in archaic Greece and the case of the Etruscan canopic vessels; on the other hand, the exceptional examples of the production of anthropomorphic vases or the complete assimilation of some Central African peoples (Yungur, Mafa and Bulahay) between ceramics and the human body in the surface treatment. This article concludes by proposing some interpretative hypotheses of the phenomenon, the basic elements of which can be found both in certain cosmogonic narratives of antiquity and in the studies of cognitive linguistics of recent decades.
myth of mankind and the representation of people in Late 18th-century British dictionaries of trade and commerce
The investigation aims at analysing the two general notions of mankind and people in two lexicographic reference works on trade and commerce published in London in the 1750s: Rolt’s A New Dictionary of Trade and Commerce (1756) and Postlethwayt’s The Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce (1757). An overview of the same notions in universal dictionaries of arts and sciences (cfr. References, Primary Sources), issued before and after ND and UD, will also be of help to define a more general background. Starting from the key words mankind and people, their frequency and relevance in the two dictionaries, the investigation is widened to include related terms (e.g. multiword expressions and language patterns in which mankind and people occur) and semantic categories (e.g. specific contexts of use: social condition, social values, demography, identity and citizenship, etc.). The many entries, cross-references, and the various lexical clusters reveal a complex lexicographic and lexicological network. This network, beyond providing information and contents on specific topics, ultimately emphasises the hierarchical organising principle at the basis of Late Modern British society: in particular, people unfolds into a myriad of ‘entities’. Dictionaries of trade and commerce are plentiful sources of knowledge, from general concepts and notions to more specific contents, but also powerful ideological tools.