Sesto Prete (September 27, 1919 in

Montefiore dell'Aso Montefiore dell'Aso is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Ascoli Piceno in the Italian region Marche, located about southeast of Ancona and about northeast of Ascoli Piceno. One of several Hilltowns in Central Italy, Montefiore dell ...

- June 15, 1991 in

Cagli Cagli is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Pesaro e Urbino, Marche, central Italy. It c. south of Urbino. The Burano flows near the town. History Cagli occupies the site of an ancient village on the Via Flaminia, which seems to have bo ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

) was an Italian-born American philologist and paleographer.

Biography

Sesto Prete studied classical philology in Italy and Germany, graduating first in Cologne in 1944 with Gunther Jachmann presenting a thesis on the concept of humanitas in Roman comedy, and then in Bologna in 1945 with Pietro Ferrarino, discussing a thesis on the concept of "Liberalitas" in the Roman comedy. Prete taught as a Lecturer in Latin at the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continuo ...

(1946–1949) and as Professor of Latin and Greek at the high school of Forlì. In 1955 he was Scientific Collaborator in the Vatican Library. He then moved to the United States, where he was a Professor from 1956 to 1968 at

Fordham University Fordham University () is a Private university, private Jesuit universities, Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the The Bronx, Bronx in which its origina ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He then taught at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

Lawrence, Kansas Lawrence is the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, Douglas County, Kansas, United States, and the sixth-largest city in the state. It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride Interstate 70, between the Kansas River, Kansas and Waka ...

, until 1990. Many of his studies and his publications relate to the text, tradition and good fortune of Plautus and especially Terentius. Among the Latin authors he has privileged the study of Ausonius but also of Cicero, Catullus, Virgilius, the two Plinius, Priscianus, Columella, Sidonius Apollinaris, Apuleius, Tertullianus and Cyprianus. He was specialized in the field of Medieval and Humanism. He has worked extensively on Ratherius and Innocentius III, Marco Polo, Dante and Petrarca. The Latin poetry of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and especially the religious poetry of poets active in Ferrara and Urbino, and also Bruni, Poliziano, Tito Vespasiano Strozzi and Pontano, Giulio Cesare Scaligero and Guillaume du Bartas. He also studied some humanist thinkers like Pius II, Poggio and Valla, Phoebus Capella, Giacomo and Antonio Costanzi, Joachim Camerarius and Niccolò Perotti. He was also the promoter and conference organizer, curator and director of acts of magazines. Due to his international activity he has been responsible for fostering relationships, comparison and exchange of ideas between various countries and especially between Italy, Germany and America. In 1978 he founded the magazine "Res Publica Litterarum. Studies in the Classical Tradition", which he directed until 1991.

Works

*''Saggi Pliniani'', studi pubblicati dall'Istituto di Filologia classica dell'Università di Bologna 3, Bologna, Zuffi,1948 *''Il codice Bembino di Terenzio'', Studi e Testi 153, Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vticana, 1950. *''P. Terenti Afri Comoediae'', Heidelberg, F.H. Kerle, 1954. *''Didascaliae: Studies in Honor of Anselm M. Albareda'' 1961 *''Two Humanistic Anthologies'' Studi e Testi 230, Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1964. *''Galileo's Letter about the libration of the Moon'' John F. Fleming, New York, 1965 *''Observations on the History of Textual Criticism in the Medieval and Renaissance Period'' 1968, St. John's University Press. *''Il codice di Terenzio Vaticano Latino 3226'', Studi e Testi 262, Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1970. *''Decimi Magni Ausonii Opuscola'' Leipzig, Teubner, 1978. *''Studies in Latin Poets of the Quattrocento'' 1978, The University of Kansas. *''L'Umanista Niccolò Perotti'', Sassoferrato, Istituto Internazionale di Studi Piceni, 1980. *''I Codici di Terenzio e quelli di Lucano nella Herzog August Bibliothek di Wolfenbuttel'' 1982. *''Tra filologi e studiosi della nostra epoca: dalla corrispondenza di Gunther Jachmann'', Didascaliae I, Pesaro, Belli, 1984. *''Pagine amare di storia della filologia classica. Dalla corrispondenza di Edoardo Fraenkel a Gunther Jachmann'', Didascaliae III, Sassoferrato, Istituto Internazionale di Studi Piceni, 1987. *''Capitoli su Terenzio'', Didascaliae IV, Sassoferrato, Istituto Internazionale di Studi Piceni, 1990. *''Lettere di Edoardo Fraenkel a Gunther Jachmann'', a cura di P.Gatti, Didascaliae V e VI, voll. 1 e 2, Fano Editrice Fortuna, 1996-1997.

External links

*
Biography of Sesto Prete

prete-sesto
abebooks.it
Studi umanistici piceni

ku.edu

Website to the magazine 'Res Publica Litterarum' that Sesto Prete founded

hab.de
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prete, Sesto 1919 births 1991 deaths Italian philologists 20th-century philologists Italian emigrants to the United States Academic staff of the University of Bologna Fordham University faculty classical scholars of the University of Kansas