Giovanni Battista Pighi (1898–1978) was a classical philologist, specializing in Latin literature, as well as a Latin poet. He graduated in Lettere in 1921 from the University of Padua, where he had among his teachers Vincenzo Ussani for Latin, Ettore Romagnoli (1871–1938) for Greek, and Ambrogio Ballini (1879–1950) for Sanskrit. In 1925, after a short period of high-school teaching, Pighi started his academic career at the Catholic University of Milan as a teaching assistant (assistente) of Oriental Languages. He became full professor of Latin language and literature at the same university in 1936, first in the Faculty of Education (Facoltà di Magistero), and then in 1939 in the Faculty of Arts (Facoltà di Lettere), where he succeeded Giuseppe Aurelio Amatucci. In 1946, he succeeded Gino Funaioli (1878–1958) as full professor of Latin language and literature at the University of Bologna. In 1968, Pighi was placed “out of role” (fuori ruolo) for seniority and eventually retired in 1973. In Bologna, Pighi also served as head (preside) of the Faculty of Arts (Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia) between 1950 and 1962, as vice-rector of the University between 1956 and 1962, and as general president (presidente generale) of the Academy of Sciences of Bologna Institute from 1963 until 1965 (for his biography, see Pasoli 1978).

Pighi’s scholarly interests in Latin literature were wide-ranging. He specialized in the study of Latin metre and Roman religion and published critical editions of Ammianus Marcellinus, Catullus, and Ovid. Additionally, he wrote articles on other authors including Plautus, Ennius, Virgil, and Horace. Pighi was also interested in medieval and humanist Latin (Pighi 1965), as well as in nineteenth- and twentieth century Neo-Latin literature (van Binnebeke 2020: 297n253), especially the Latin poetry of Giovanni Pascoli (1855–1912) (for his publications on the subject, see Pighi 1980: 8-9). Additionally, Pighi published anthologies and manuals for use in schools, as well as books on Latin literature and Roman history for wider audiences (for a complete bibliography of Pighi’s publications until 1969, see Pasoli 1970).

Pighi also wrote Latin poetry and participated several times at the Certamen Hoeufftianum; he won the gold medal in 1951 with Rudens Resartus, a Latin comedy inspired by Plautus’ plays (his Rudens in particular), and was awarded the magna laus in 1933 (Pighi 1934; van Binnebeke 2020: 297n19) and in 1960 (Ecloga XII sive Ovis perdita).

During the 1930s, Pighi supported the initiatives of the Istituto di Studi Romani to revive Latin as an “international technical language” (lingua tecnica internazionale), i.e. as a language of international scholarly communication (Pighi 1934c). He also supported the Fascist regime’s implementation of the teaching of Latin as a written and spoken language in Italian schools (Pighi 1937; Pighi 1939).

Bibliography

Latin texts

Mussolini, Benito. 1936a. Beniti Mussolini de instaurando Italorum imperio oratio. Translated by Giovanni Battista Pighi. Milano: Vita e Pensiero.

———. 1936b. ‘Beniti Mussolini de instaurando Italorum imperio oratio’. Translated by Giovanni Battista Pighi. Aevum: Rassegna di scienze storiche linguistiche e filologiche 10 (4): 449–52.

Pighi, Giovanni Battista. 1934. ‘Epistula ad Murrium Reatinum’. Aevum: Rassegna di scienze storiche linguistiche e filologiche 8 (1): 141-148.

———. 1937. ‘De utilitate linguae latinae’. Il mondo classico 1 (3–4): 280–86.

Other works of the author

Ovid. 1973. Publii Ovidii Nasonis Fastorum libri. Edited by Giovanni Battista Pighi. 2 vols. Turin: Paravia.

Pighi, Giovanni Battista. 1934a. ‘Del latino come lingua tecnica internazionale’. Aevum: Rassegna di scienze storiche linguistiche e filologiche 8 (1): 234–38.

———. 1934b. ‘La pronunzia del latino’. Aevum: Rassegna di scienze storiche linguistiche e filologiche 8 (1): 215–33.

———. 1934c. Studia Ammianea: annotationes criticae et grammaticae in Ammianum Marcellinum. Milan: Vita e pensiero.

———. 1936. Nuovi studi ammianei. Milan: E. Calamandrei & C.

———. 1939a. ‘L’insegnamento del latino’. Aevum: Rassegna di scienze storiche linguistiche e filologiche 13 (1): 222–36.

———. 1939b. ‘Pronunzie del latino’. Per lo studio e l’uso del latino 1 (2): 105–10.

———. 1941. De ludis saecularibus populi Romani Quiritium: libri sex. Milan: Vita e pensiero.

———. 1958. I ritmi e metri della poesia latina. Brescia: La scuola editrice.

———. 1961. Catullo veronese: prolegomeni, testo critico e traduzione. 3 vols. Verona: Cassa di risparmio di Veronsa, Vicenza e Belluno.

———. 1967. La religione romana. Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo.

———. 1970. Studi di ritmica e metrica. Raccolti a cura della Facoltà di Lettere dell’Università degli Studi di Bologna. Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo.

———. 1980. Scritti pascoliani. A cura di Alfonso Traina. Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo.

Pighi, Giovanni Battista, and Giuseppe Albini. 1965. La corrispondenza poetica di Dante e Giovanni del Virgilio e l’ecloga di Giovanni al Mussato. Testo versione commento a cura di Giuseppe Albini. Nuova edizione a cura di Giovanni Battista Pighi. Bologna: Zanichelli.

Secondary sources

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.

Luggin, Johanna. 2020. ‘Imperium iam tandem Italiae restitutum est. Lateinische Übersetzungen der Reden Mussolinis’. In Studies in the Latin Literature and Epigraphy of Italian Fascism, edited by Han Lamers, Bettina Reitz-Joosse, and Valerio Sanzotta, 105–42. Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia 46. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

Pasoli, Elio. 1970. ‘Bibliografia degli scritti di Giovanni Battista Pighi’. In Studi di ritmica e metrica. Raccolti a cura della Facoltà di Lettere dell’Università degli Studi di Bologna, by Giovanni Battista Pighi, vii–xvl. Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo.

———. 1978. ‘Giovanni Battista Pighi’. Gnomon 50 (6): 621–23.

Nicolò Bettegazzi