Gian Biagio Conte (2009) Gian Biagio Conte (born 1941 in

La Spezia La Spezia (, or , ; in the local Spezzino dialect) is the capital city of the province of La Spezia and is located at the head of the Gulf of La Spezia in the southern part of the Liguria region of Italy. La Spezia is the second largest city ...

) is an Italian

classicist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

and professor of Latin Literature at 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 ...

of Pisa.

Life

Conte completed his studies in classical philology at the

Pisa Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the cit ...

, where he was influenced by scholars such as Antonio La Penna,

Sebastiano Timpanaro Sebastiano Timpanaro (September 5, 1923 in Parma – November 26, 2000 in Florence) was an Italian classical philologist, essayist, and literary critic. He was also a long-time Marxist who made important contributions to left-wing political c ...

and . In particular with the first of these, he first had a fruitful period of collaboration, but then broke contact abruptly in an exchange of letters. Conte also went abroad to study in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

with Friedrich Klingner and in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. At the age of 30, he was made professor of Latin Literature at the

University of Siena The University of Siena ( it, Università degli Studi di Siena, abbreviation: UNISI) in Siena, Tuscany, is one of the oldest and first publicly funded universities in Italy. Originally called ''Studium Senese'', the institution was founded in 1240 ...

, later at the

University of Pisa The University of Pisa ( it, Università di Pisa, UniPi), officially founded in 1343, is one of the oldest universities in Europe. History The Origins The University of Pisa was officially founded in 1343, although various scholars place ...

and finally, in 2001, at the ''Scuola Normale Superiore''. He enjoys high esteem outside Italy, in particular in the Anglo-Saxon world where he has been invited as guest professor to

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

, and

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

. In 2007, he ran for the office of director of the ''Scuola Normale Superiore'', but was second to the preceding director

Salvatore Settis Salvatore Settis (born 11 June 1941) is an Italian archaeologist and art historian. From 1994 to 1999 he was director of the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities in Los Angeles and from 1999 to 2010 of the Scuola Normale Superio ...

, who received his third mandate in succession. In 2014 he was elected a

Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in the United Kingdom # C ...

Work

Conte confines his work basically to Latin literature, mainly to the poetry of the late republic, the Augustan period, and the early empire (

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...

Lucan Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (3 November 39 AD – 30 April 65 AD), better known in English as Lucan (), was a Roman poet, born in Corduba (modern-day Córdoba), in Hispania Baetica. He is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial ...

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...

, the

elegiacs The adjective ''elegiac'' has two possible meanings. First, it can refer to something of, relating to, or involving, an elegy or something that expresses similar mournfulness or sorrow. Second, it can refer more specifically to poetry composed in ...

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into E ...

), but also works on prose writers such as

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...

and on the novel of

Petronius Gaius Petronius Arbiter"Gaius Petronius Arbiter"
literary theory Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, mo ...

of the 1970s, in particular

structuralism In sociology, anthropology, archaeology, history, philosophy, and linguistics, structuralism is a general theory of culture and methodology that implies that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a broader ...

. In his most successful pieces of work, for the most part articles which he later put together to form thematic volumes, Conte breaks with Croce’s

historicism Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history, that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely u ...

and develops the concept of a literary system and of

genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...

based on

code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

s. Conte's approach has been picked up in the last thirty years in particular in the Anglo-Saxon world and successfully elaborated in combination with the theory of

intertextuality Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text, either through deliberate compositional strategies such as quotation, allusion, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche or parody,Gerard Genette (1997) ''Paratexts'p.18/ref>H ...

. Conte has published a Teubner edition of Virgil's''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...

'' and continues working, together with a group of researchers and students, on a commentary to go with it, on a commentary on the ''Satyrica'' of Petronius and on

allegory As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...

as a literary and hermeneutical form. Conte is co-founder and director of the periodical ''

Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici ''Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici'' (often abbreviated to ''MD''; "Materials and discussions for the analysis of classical texts") is an Italian periodical within the realm of classical philology founded in 1978. The perio ...

'' as well as a regular member of the Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana in

Mantua Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard language, Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture ...

. Amongst his students are Alessandro Schiesaro,

Alessandro Barchiesi Alessandro Barchiesi (born 1955) is an Italian classicist. A specialist on Latin poetry, he is best known for his work on Horace, Vergil and Ovid. Having spent the majority of his career in Italy and the United States, he has served as a professo ...

, Rolando Ferri, Sergio Casali.

Selected writings

Books and collections of articles * ''Memoria dei poeti e sistema letterario'', Einaudi Torino 1974, 2nd ed. 1985 (engl. ''The Rhetoric of Imitation'', tr.

Glenn W. Most Glenn Warren Most (born June 12, 1952 in Miami) is an Americans, American classicist and comparative literature, comparatist originating from the US, but also working in Germany and Italy. Most studied classics at Harvard from 1968 on and receiv ...

, Cornell U. P. Ithaca/London 1987) * ''Virgilio: il genere e i suoi confini'', Garzanti Milano 1984 * ''Letteratura latina: manuale storico dalle origini alla fine dell'impero romano'', Le Monnier Firenze 1987, 2nd ed. 1989, 3rd enl. ed. 1993 (engl. ''Latin Literature: A History'', tr. Joseph B. Solodow, rev. Don Fowler and Glenn W. Most. Baltimore & London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994 (rev. Peter Davis
Scholia Reviews ns 5 (1996) 3
* ''Generi e Lettori: saggi su Lucrezio, l'elegia d'amore, l'enciclopedia di Plinio'', Mondadori Milano 1991 (engl. ''Genres and Readers'', tr.

, Johns Hopkins U.P., Baltimore) * ''L'Autore nascosto: Un'interpretazione del Satyricon di Petronio'', Il Mulino Bologna 1997 (engl. ''The Hidden Author'', California University Press, 1996) * (with E. Pianezzola und G. Ranucci) ''Il Dizionario della Lingua Latina'', Le Monnier, Firenze 2000 * ''Virgilio: l'epica del sentimento'', Einaudi Torino 2002 * ''The Poetry of Pathos: Studies in Virgilian Epic''. Ed. by S. J. Harrison. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007, Critical editions * P. Vergilius Maro, ''Aeneis'', ed. Gian Biagio Conte (

Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana The Bibliotheca Teubneriana, or ''Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana'', also known as Teubner editions of Greek and Latin texts, comprise one of the most thorough modern collection published of ancient (and some medieval) ...

), Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter 2009,

References

External links

Conte at Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (including photograph)

Conte’s bibliography at Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa
{{DEFAULTSORT:Conte, Gian Biagio Italian philologists 1941 births Living people Italian Latinists Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy University of Pisa alumni University of Pisa faculty Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa alumni Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa faculty