Alessandro Olivieri

Alessandro Olivieri (born February 15, 1872 in Senigallia , † October 11, 1950 in Naples ) was an Italian classical philologist and papyrologist .

Life

After graduating from school in Senigallia, Alessandro Olivieri first studied medicine at La Sapienza University in Rome . Under the impression of Enea Piccolomini's lectures , he decided to start studying philology. In 1895 he moved to the University of Bologna , attracted by the fame of the poet Giosuè Carducci , who worked there as a professor of Italian literature. In Bologna in 1896 Olivieri acquired the laureate with a work on the death of Agamemnons according to the information in the Odyssey , which was supervised by Vittorio Puntoni .

In 1898 Olivieri took the chair of his doctoral supervisor Puntoni in Bologna. In the following year 1899 he followed the call to the chair of Greek philology at the University of Catania , where he worked for six years. In 1905 he moved to the University of Naples Federico II as the successor to Ferdinando Flores , where he worked until his retirement (1936). The Accademia dei Lincei elected him in 1922 as a corresponding member and in 1946 as a full member.

Raffaele Cantarella , Vittorio De Falco and Francesco Sbordone were among his students .

Scientific work

Olivieri dealt with wide areas of Greek literature. The focus of his life's work was the edition and explanation of Greek poetry (Doric comedy and phlyacs ), specialist publications (astrology, philosophy and medicine) and inscriptions. Shortly after completing his doctorate, he published an edition of the astrological writing Katasterismoi , which was handed down under the name of Eratosthenes . As a result, he recommended himself to Franz Cumont , who at the time was planning a directory of Greek manuscripts with astrological texts in collaboration with other philologists ( Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum , CCAG). Olivieri took over the description of the manuscripts in the Florentine libraries, which appeared as the first CCAG volume in 1898, and also contributed to other volumes.

Due to the move to Naples, Olivieri came into contact with the papyrus finds from Pompeii . He published two writings by the philosopher Philodemos von Gadara in critical editions: Peri tou kath 'Homeron agathou basileos ( The good king according to Homer , 1909) and Peri parrhesias ( About Freimut , 1914). For Hans Lietzmann's study book series Kleine Texte , he published an annotated edition of the Orphic gold tablets (1915). Another study edition (with Greek legal inscriptions from Sicily and southern Italy) he published in 1925 together with the legal historian Vincenzo Arangio-Ruiz (1884–1964).

Olivieri's studies of sub-Italian forms of Greek comedy first found expression in an edition of the Sicilian Comedy (1921). In an expanded form he published it in 1930 together with the fragments of the Phlyaks and the poet Sophron , and later again in two volumes (1946–1947).

The history of medicine enriched Olivieri with his critical edition of the Libri medicinales of late antique doctor Aëtius of Amida (502-575), as part of the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum appeared (1935, 1950).

Fonts (selection)

• Pseudo-Eratosthenis Catasterismi . Leipzig 1897 ( Mythographi Graeci 3.1)
• Catalogus codicum astrologorum Graecorum. Vol. 1: Codices Florentinos . Brussels 1898
• with Wilhelm Kroll : Catalogus codicum astrologorum Graecorum. Vol. 2: Codices Venetos . Brussels 1900
• with Domenico Bassi , Franz Cumont and Emidio Martini : Catalogus codicum astrologorum Graecorum. Vol. 4: Codices Italicos praeter Florentinos, Venetos, Mediolanenses, Romanos . Brussels 1903
• Philodemi Περὶ τοῦ καθ 'Ὅμηρον ἀγαθοῦ βασιλέως libellus . Leipzig 1909
• Philodemi Περὶ παρρησίας libellus . Leipzig 1914
• Lamellae aureae Orphicae . Bonn 1915 ( Small texts for lectures and exercises 133)
• with Vincenzo Arangio-Ruiz: Inscriptiones Graecae Siciliae et infimae Italiae ad ius pertinentes . Milan 1925
• I frammenti della commedia siciliana. Testo e commento . Naples 1921
  • extended version: Frammenti della commedia greca e del mimo nella Sicilia e nella Magna Grecia . Naples 1930
  • 2nd, expanded and revised edition in two volumes:
    • Volume 1 (1946): Frammenti della commedia dorica siciliana
    • Volume 2 (1947): Frammenti della commedia fliacica
• Civiltà greca nell'Italia meridionale . Naples 1931
• Aetii Amideni Libri Medicinales I – IV . Leipzig / Berlin 1935 ( Corpus Medicorum Graecorum 8.2)
• Aetii Amideni Libri Medicinales V – VIII . Leipzig / Berlin 1950 ( Corpus Medicorum Graecorum 8.2)

literature

• Francesco Sbordone: L'actività papirologica di Alessandro Olivieri (Senigallia, 15-11-1872 – Napoli, 11-X-1950) . Aegyptus 30 (1950), pp. 259-261
• Raffaele Cantarella : Alessandro Olivieri (Senigallia 15-II-1872 - Napoli 11-X-1950) . In: Aevum . Vol. 24 (1950), pp. 511-513
• Kurt Aland (Ed.): The Splendor and Decline of the German University: 50 Years of German Scientific History in Letters to and from Hans Lietzmann (1892–1942). Verlag de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1979, ISBN 3-11-004980-5 , p. 28.
• Corinne Bonnet: La correspondance scientifique de Franz Cumont conservée à l'Academia Belgica de Rome (= Études de philologie, d'archéologie et d'histoire anciennes. Volume 35). Institut historique belge de Rome, Brussels / Rome 1997, ISBN 90-74461-25-5 , pp. 253ff.

Web links

• Literature by Alessandro Olivieri in the catalog of the German National Library