Vincenzo Ussani (Naples 1870 – Rome 1952) was a Latinist and author of original works in Latin, both poetry and prose. He began composing Latin poetry early in his life. Some of his early poems were highly patriotic, as for instance the hymn In Romam in Sapphic stanzas, composed for the 50^th anniversary of the founding of the Kingdom of Italy (Abrate 1941: 326–329). He was awarded prizes at the Certamen Hoeufftianum in 1910 (Ecloga Zanclaea, awarded magna laus) and at the International Latin Poetry Competition of the Municipality of Rome in 1911 (second place) (Vannucci 1952; Curnis 2020). He started teaching Latin literature at the University of Messina in 1908, and then moved to the universities of Palermo (1909–1919), Padua (1919–1923), Pisa (1923–1927) and finally Rome (1927–1940). He became a member of the Accademia dei Lincei in 1927, then of the Accademia d’Italia in 1939 (Curnis 2020). During his time as Professor at the University of Rome, Ussani was tasked with selecting the inscriptions to be inscribed on the walls of the seat of ISTAT (National Institute of Statistics) in 1931 and of the Città Universitaria (University City), that was built in Rome in 1935 (Ussani 1942: 361; Marcello and Gwynne 2015; Nastasi 2019: 722–23). Both texts of Ussani included in FLT, Romae Laudes and Nuntius, are translations from Italian into Latin. These translations, aimed at an international audience, reflect Ussani’s vision of Latin as a means of international communication which he also promoted in his article on the unifying mission of the Latin language (Ussani 1939, on which see Lamers and Reitz-Joosse 2016: 232–34). 

Bibliography

Latin texts

Mussolini, Benito. 1934a. ‘Beniti Mussolini Romae laudes’. Translated by Vincenzo Ussani. Roma universa. Rivista mensile dei Comitati d’Azione per la Universalità di Roma 2 (4): 101.

———. 1934b. Beniti Mussolini Romae laudes. Translated by Vincenzo Ussani. Edizioni dei Comitati d’Azione per la Universalità di Roma. Rome: Europa.

Ussani, Vincenzo, trans. 1933. ‘Nuntius’. Roma universa. Rivista mensile dei comitati d’Azione per la Universalità di Roma 1 (1): 1.

Scholarly works (selection)

Ussani, Vincenzo. 1899. Il poema di M. Anneo Lucano tradotto da V. U. Turin: Loescher.

———. 1900. Le liriche di Orazio. Turin: Loescher.

———. 1903. Sul valore storico del poema lucaneo. Roma: E. Loescher & C.

———. 1908. Intorno alla novissima edizione di Lucano. Firenze: Successori Seeber.

———. 1924. Concezioni e immagini di Roma nelle letterature antiche. Roma: Pompeo Sansaini.

———. 1929. Storia della letteratura latina nelle età repubblicana e augustea. Milano: F. Vallardi.

———. 1939. ‘La missione unificatrice del latino nella storia della civiltà’. Per lo studio e l’’uso del latino. Bollettino internazionale di studi-ricerche-informazioni 1 (3): 197–207.

———. 1942. Scritti di filologia e umanità. Naples: Ricciardi.

Secondary Literature

Abrate, Giuseppe. 1941. ‘La poesia latina di Vincenzo Ussani’. Roma. Rivista di studi e di vita romana 19 (8): 322–33.

Curnis, Michele. 2020. ‘Ussani, Vincenzo’. In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 97: 631–33. Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana.

Lamers, Han, and Bettina Reitz-Joosse. 2016. ‘Lingua Lictoria: The Latin Literature of Italian Fascism’. Classical Receptions Journal 8 (2): 216–52.

Marcello, Flavia, and Paul Gwynne. 2015. ‘Speaking from the Walls: Militarism, Education and Romanità in Rome’s Città Universitaria (1932-35)’. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 74 (3): 323–43.

Nastasi, Antonino. 2019. Le iscrizioni in latino di Roma Capitale (1870-2018). Rome: Edizioni Quasar.

Vannucci, Pasquale. 1952. Giovanni Pascoli, Vincenzo Ussani e la curiosa vicenda di un concorso per un ‘Hymnus in Romam’. Rome: F.lli Palombi.

Evelien de Graaf