Carlo Anti

Carlo Anti (born April 24, 1889 in Villafranca di Verona , † June 9, 1961 in Padua ) was one of the most important Italian classical archaeologists of the first half of the 20th century, who got entangled in Italian fascism as a science politician.

Carlo Anti graduated from the University of Bologna with a laureate in 1911 , where Gherardo Ghirardini was his teacher. He then moved to the University of Rome , where he continued his studies with Emanuel Loewy and Adolfo Venturi . During his time in Rome he married Clelia Vinciguerra and became inspector of the Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico "Luigi Pigorini" . In 1914 he stayed in Greece, where he came into contact with Luigi Pernier , Biagio Pace , Wilhelm Dörpfeld and Panagiotis Kavvadias . During his training, he was particularly influenced by the German, philologically oriented classical archeology, especially by the Munich School, which was mainly represented by Heinrich Brunn and Adolf Furtwängler . Master research in particular became his preferred research content. Emanuel Löwy turned his attention to the background to the creation of the works of art. The First World War interrupted his career, he served as an officer in the Italian army until 1922. In 1921, Amedeo Maiuri and Roberto Paribeni Anti invited to excavations in Anatolia , which were intended to initiate a permanent Italian presence in the region. In 1922 he was appointed to the professorship for Classical Archeology at the University of Padua . In the same year he curated at the 13th Biennale of Venice an exhibition of 33 African objects from the collections of the Museo Nazionale Preistorico Ethnographic "Luigi Pigorini" and the Ethnological Museum of Florence . From 1925 to 1937 he assisted Luigi Pernier in his excavations in the Apollo shrine in Cyrene . While Pernier was in charge of the excavations, Anti was responsible for recording the finds. In 1930 he led the excavations in the Egyptian desert near Umm el Breighat , the ancient Tebtynis .

Between 1932 and 1943 Anti was Rector of the University of Padua, which he led as a representative of Italian fascism. His status as a fascist intellectual underpins the portrayal of Antis in Norberto Bobbio's autobiography. Among other things, he was responsible for the expansion work on the rectorate building, for which the architect Gio Ponti was also responsible, along with other artists . After the race legislation in 1938, he rigorously enforced it at the university and removed Jewish teachers from the teaching staff. On the other hand, at the same time he commissioned the Jewish artist Massimo Campigli to design the frescoes for the faculty of literature at the university. He appointed the avowed anti-fascist and Latinist Concetto Marchesi to a teaching position. Anti also encouraged sporting activities for the young students. The holdings of the Archaeological Museum of Padua were greatly increased by Anti's influence. Since the 1940s he devoted himself increasingly to his studies in Greek theater . During the Repubblica Sociale Italiana between 1943 and 1945 he was general director of Antichità e Belle Arti , successor as rector of the university was Concetto Marchesi. In this position, Anti opposed the deportation of works of art by the Germans. In 1945 he lost his position due to his involvement in the fascist regime, and in 1947 he was re-admitted to the university's faculty. Above all, he continued his research on ancient theater and was supported by his student Luigi Polacco . In 1959 he retired.

Anti wrote his first work on the problem of the interpretation of ancient Greek statues , especially the works of Polyklets and its artistic development. In his work Monumenti policleti in 1920 he connected various works by Polyklet and was able to gain important insights for research on the artist despite the master research that was already outdated at the time. Anti combined many influences in his work, such as the Vienna School of Archeology with the German philological method, the idealism of the Benedetto Croce school , the reintroduction of antiquarian methods, the re-evaluation of Roman art and the rediscovery of Etruscan art . For major work was Theaters greci arcaici since Minosse a Pericle , his book on the ancient theater, in which he brought some new insights to the research. The book, published in 1947, was awarded the Grand Prize in 1949 by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei , which sparked controversy about how to deal with researchers involved in fascism. Posthumously appeared with Nuovo Ricerche sui teatri greci arcaici another authored with Palacco monograph on the Greek Theater.

Publications (selection)

A complete bibliography of the writings of Carlo Antis is offered by his student Luigi Polacco : Commemorazione del membro emerito prof. Carlo Anti. In: Atti dell'Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. Volume 120, 1961-1962, pp. 61-65.

• Il Regio Museo Archeologico nel Palazzo Reale di Venezia. Libreria dello Stato, Rome 1930.
• L'Archeologia. Padua 1930.
• Policleto (= L'Arte per tutti. Volume 127). Bergamo 1931
• Teatri greci arcaici (da Minosse a Pericle). Padua 1947.
• Guida per il visitatore del Teatro antico di Siracusa. Florence 1948.
• L'Orestea come la rappresentava Eschilo. Padua 1948.
• Igea ed Esculapio in un rilievo del Museo Maffeiano. Verona 1955.
• Gherardo Ghirardini nel centenario della nascita. Padua 1958.
• with Luigi Polacco: Nuove ricerche sui teatri greci arcaici. Padua 1969.

literature

• Marcello Barbanera: Anti, Carlo. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , column 30 f.
• Luigi Polacco : Commemorazione del membro emerito prof. Carlo Anti. In: Atti dell'Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. Volume 120, 1961-1962, pp. 50-65 ( PDF ).