Bruno Gentili

Bruno Gentili (20 November 1915 – 7 January 2014) was an Italian classical scholar and philologist, Emeritus at the University of Urbino.

A prolific scholar, Gentili was an expert of Ancient Greek poetry and metre.

Biography

Born in Valmontone, Gentili spent his youth in Abruzzo and graduated from the Liceo Classico "Ovidio" in Sulmona. He enrolled in the Sapienza University of Rome, where he studied Greek Literature under Ettore Romagnoli and Byzantine Philology under Silvio Giuseppe Mercati. He graduated, tutored by Mercati, with a thesis in Byzantine Philology on the topic "Studio critico intorno alla storia di Agatia e alla sua tradizione manoscritta" Critical Study around Agathias' ''History'' and Its Manuscript Transmission Soon after graduation, Gentili became assistant to Gennaro Perrotta (Romagnoli's successor), teaching Greek and Latin Metre.

In 1956 Gentili became professor of Greek literature in the newly founded Faculty of Humanities of the University of Urbino, explicitly nominated by the chancellor Carlo Bo. He was nominated emeritus soon after his retirement (1991).

Gentili died aged 98 in Rome, in 2014. His wife was Franca Perusino, Emerita of Classical Philology at the University of Urbino.

Research

Gentili was a specialist of Ancient Greek poetry and metre. He wrote extensively on poets such as Alcman, Anacreon, Bacchylides and Pindar, and was recognized as a major expert of Greek metre. In 1950 he published his first monograph on the topic, which became one of his lines of research; his 1952 book on the subject, ''La metrica dei Greci'', was re-edited and augmented in 2003 in collaboration with Liana Lomiento. In 1999 he and Franca Perusino edited a monograph on ancient Greek colometry. He studied Greek tragedy and ancient historiography and Roman culture, co-writing a history of Latin literature.

Gentili also worked as critical editor of Greek texts. In 1958, other than publishing a volume of studies on Bacchylides, he edited the fragments of Anacreon. His major critical work is the Teubner collection, edited with Carlo Prato, of all the extant fragments of the Greek elegiac poets. Starting from the 1990s, he promoted the critical edition, with Italian translation and philological commentary, of Pindar's odes.

In 1965 he and Perrotta co-edited an anthology of archaic Greek poetry, which became a widely used textbook in Italian schools.

Publications

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Honors

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* Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei: National membership (1989) — previously: correspondent (1984).
* Order of Merit of the Italian Republic — Grand Officer (2nd Class) (1989).
* Honorary degrees:
** University of Southampton (1978)
** University of Lausanne (1983)
** Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (1987)
** Complutense University of Madrid (2000)

References

Bibliography

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* {{Cite web , last=Musti , first=Domenico , title=Gentili, Bruno , url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/bruno-gentili_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/ , website=Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani
Italian classical scholars
Classical scholars
Italian academics