Enrica Follieri (5 December 1926 – 11 December 1999) was an Italian
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...
and
paleographer
Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US) (ultimately from , , 'old', and , , 'to write') is the study and academic discipline of historical writing systems. It encompasses the historicity of manuscripts and texts, subsuming deciphering and dati ...
, specialized in
Byzantine literature
Byzantine literature is the Greek literature of the Middle Ages, whether written in the Byzantine Empire or outside its borders. It was marked by a linguistic diglossy; two distinct forms of Byzantine Greek were used, a scholarly dialect based ...
and
hagiography
A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian ...
. She spent her whole academic career at
La Sapienza University
The Sapienza University of Rome (), formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", abbreviated simply as Sapienza ('Wisdom'), is a Public university, public research university located in Rome, Italy. It was founded in 1303 and is ...
of
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
.
Biography
Born in Rome in a family of
Pugliese origins (her parents were from
Foggia
Foggia (, ; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) of Apulia, in Southern Italy, capital of the province of Foggia. In 2013, its population was 153,143. Foggia is the main city of a plain called Tavoliere delle Puglie, Tavoliere, also know ...
), she graduated in Classics from La Sapienza University in 1948, tutored by
Byzantinist
Byzantine studies is an interdisciplinary branch of the humanities that addresses the history, culture, demography, dress, religion/theology, art, literature/epigraphy, music
Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination ...
Silvio Giuseppe Mercati
Silvio Giuseppe Mercati (born Giuseppe Mercati; 16 September 1877 – 16 October 1963) was an Italian Byzantinist, recognized as the first Italian classical scholar who specialized in Byzantine studies and the first Professor of Byzantine studie ...
. She immediately became Assistant of
Antonio Maria Cervi, then Professor of Classical Philology, and of Mercati, and then also of
Ciro Giannelli who succeeded Mercati.
She obtained habilitation ("libera docenza") in Byzantine philology in 1960 and in Greek Paleography in the following year, and became Professor of Greek Paleography at the Scuola Speciale per Archivisti e Bibliotecari (connected to La Sapienza) from 1961 to 1975. In 1976 she applied for the Chairs of Byzantine Philology and Greek Paleography at La Sapienza, winning both; she chose to hold the former, teaching the latter per assignment. At the Scuola Speciale, she was succeeded in 1979 by her pupil Lidia Perria, and at La Sapienza by
Guglielmo Cavallo
Guglielmo Cavallo (born 18 August 1938 in Carovigno) is an Italian palaeographer and Byzantinist, Emeritus Professor of the Sapienza University of Rome.
Life
Cavallo graduated from the University of Bari in 1961, tutored by Carlo Ferdinando ...
(since 1975 Professor of
Latin Paleography, then—from 1978 on—Professor of Greek Paleography).
She retired on 31 October 1999 and died less than two months later in Rome.
Her sister was the archaeobotanist
Maria Follieri.
Research
Follieri researched Byzantine religious literature, and particularly hagiography.
She studied and critically edited homiletic, hagiographic, and religious Byzantine texts, both in prose and in verses.
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
Byzantinist
Vera von Falkenhausen
Vera von Falkenhausen (born 1938) is a German Byzantinist who lives and works in Italy.
Life
Vera von Falkenhausen pursued Byzantine studies at the University of Munich, where she made her thesis in 1966 under Hans-Georg Beck. She then spent t ...
pointed out that more than half of Follieri's works deal with hagiographic matters, but if one considers all the specific passages about hagiography, the percentage raises up to 95%.
She also was a skilled paleographer and gave significant contributions to the study of the history of Greek handwriting, particularly focusing on Southern Italian manuscripts and Greek manuscripts in minuscule writing from the IX-X centuries. A very specific punctuation mark, found in several manuscripts of both oriental and Southern Italian origins, was named after her ("chiodo Follieri", i.e. "Follieri nail", due to its shape).
Works (selection)
Enrica Follieri's complete bibliography was published by
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Follieri, Enrica
1926 births
1999 deaths
Italian philologists
Academic staff of the Sapienza University of Rome