Maria Timpanaro Cardini (1890–1978), born Maria Cardini, 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 especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

who studied the history of

ancient philosophy This page lists some links to ancient philosophy, namely philosophical thought extending as far as early post-classical history (). Overview Genuine philosophical thought, depending upon original individual insights, arose in many cultures ...

and

history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Meso ...

Biography

Cardini was born in

Arezzo Arezzo ( , , ) , also ; ett, 𐌀𐌓𐌉𐌕𐌉𐌌, Aritim. is a city and ''comune'' in Italy and the capital of the province of the same name located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about southeast of Florence at an elevation of above sea level. ...

on August 24, 1890. She received her degree in Greek philology in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

in 1914. She traveled briefly to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

to study with

Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff Enno Friedrich Wichard Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (22 December 1848 – 25 September 1931) was a German classical philologist. Wilamowitz, as he is known in scholarly circles, was a renowned authority on Ancient Greece and its literature ...

and Hermann Diels. Cardini was active for several years as a dadaist poet. She was friends with, among others,

Tristan Tzara Tristan Tzara (; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, comp ...

, but abandoned poetic practice in 1920. Cardini worked as a high school teacher, first in Parma, where she met her future husband Sebastiano Timpanaro Sr., then in a private Florentine school, and finally in Pisa. Cardini and Timpanaro married in 1922 in Naples. After the Second World War, she was active in local politics with the

Partito Socialista Italiano The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parties of the country. Founded in Genoa in 1892, ...

, where she dealt mostly with the secular maternal schools of Pisa. Cardini earned national and international recognition as an editor and translator of Sophist and Pythagorean fragments,

Pseudo-Aristotle Pseudo-Aristotle is a general cognomen for authors of philosophical or medical treatises who attributed their work to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, or whose work was later attributed to him by others. Such falsely attributed works are known as ps ...

an texts, and the works of

Proclus Proclus Lycius (; 8 February 412 – 17 April 485), called Proclus the Successor ( grc-gre, Πρόκλος ὁ Διάδοχος, ''Próklos ho Diádokhos''), was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, one of the last major classical philosophers ...

, as well as for her publications on the history of ancient science. She later completed the first Italian translation of '' Sidereus nuncius'' by

Galileo Galilei Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...

. Her literary archive is managed by the library of the

Scuola Normale Superiore The Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (commonly known in Italy as "la Normale") is a public university in Pisa and Florence, Tuscany, Italy, currently attended by about 600 undergraduate and postgraduate (PhD) students. It was founded in 1810 wi ...

in Pisa. Her son, Sebastiano Timpanaro, also became a classical philologist.

Selected works

* ''I Sofisti. Frammenti e testimonianze''. Translation, preface, and notes., Bari, Laterza, 1923. *

, '' Sidereus nuncius,'' Translation with foreword, preface, and notes, Firenze, Sansoni, 1948. * ''Pitagorici. Testimonianze e frammenti'', 3 voll., Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1958–64. * ''Il «Cielo» di Aristotele'', in: "Physis. Rivista Internazionale di Storia della Scienza", VI (1964). * Pseudo-Aristotele, ''De lineis insecabilibus'', Introduction, translation, and commentary, Milano-Varese, Istituto editoriale cisalpino, 1970 ("Testi e documenti per lo studio dell'antichità", 32). * Proclo, ''Commento al I libro degli " Elementi" di

Euclid Euclid (; grc-gre, Wikt:Εὐκλείδης, Εὐκλείδης; BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician. Considered the "father of geometry", he is chiefly known for the ''Euclid's Elements, Elements'' trea ...

e'', Introduction, translation, and notes, Pisa, Giardini, 1978. * ''Tra antichità classica e impegno civile,'' edited by Sebastiano Timpanaro, Pisa, ETS, 2001. * ''Pitagorici Antichi. Testimonianze e frammenti'', Milano, Bompiani, 2010.

References

Bibliography

* Graziano Arrighetti, ''Sebastiano Timpanaro: ritratto della madre,'' in: ''Omaggio a Sebastiano Timpanaro'', edited by Walter Lapini, La Spezia, Agorà, 2013 ("Sileno. Rivista di studi classici e cristiani", XXXIX), pp. 3–12. * Giovanna Derenzini, ''Maria Timpanaro Cardini'', in: "Physis. Rivista Internazionale di Storia della Scienza", XXII (1980), pp. 133–145. *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Timpanaro Cardini, Maria 1890 births 1978 deaths Italian philologists Italian translators 20th-century philologists