Not much is currently known about the life of Aldo Grossi, who was born in Orte (Lazio) in 1885. He became member of the Partito Nazionale Fascista in 1930. In the 1930s he was teacher in Terni (Umbria) but had to resign his position due to “incompatibility with the office” (Bernardini 2008: 205). Grossi served as podestà of Orte and provincial education officer (provveditore agli studi) for Terni (Montini 1936: 1139). During the ventennio fascista, he participated several times in Latin competitions, including the Certamen Hoeufftianum and the Certamen Locrense (van Binnebeke 2020: 250n25; IJsewijn 1961: 173). In 1934, he received an honorable mention at the first national competition of Latin prose, organized by the Istituto di Studi Romani (Roma 12, no. 12 (1934): 568). On his poem Italicum carmen, see also De Sutter (2020: 85–89). More research on his life and work is needed.

Bibliography

Latin texts

Grossi, Aldo. 1923. Italicum carmen. Teramo: Casa Editrice del Lauro.

———. 1926. Italicum carmen. Translated by Raffaele Janni. Narni: Valenti.

Secondary sources

Bernardini, Maria Chiara. 2008. ‘La classe dirigente negli anni del fascismo. Il caso viterbese (1920-1945)’. PhD Thesis. Viterbo: Università degli Studi della Tuscia.

Binnebeke, Xavier van. 2020. ‘Hoeufft’s Legacy: Neo-Latin Poetry in the Archive of the Certamen Poeticum Hoeufftianum (1923-1943)’. In Studies in the Latin Literature and Epigraphy of Italian Fascism, edited by Han Lamers, Bettina Reitz-Joosse, and Valerio Sanzotta, 245–325. Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia 46. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

De Sutter, Nicholas. 2019. ‘Through Vergil’s Eyes: The Certamen Hoeufftianum and the Revival of Figures from Antiquity in the Latin Poetry of the First World War’. FuturoClassico 5: 45–91.

IJsewijn, Jozef. 1961. ‘Conspectus poetarum Latinorum saeculi vicesimi’. Euphrosyne 3: 149–190.

Montini, Renzo U. 1936. ‘Un episodio poco noto della campagna del 1867. La legione romana’. Rassegna storica del Risorgimento 23 (8): 1109–1140.

Han Lamers