Nicola Festa (Matera 1866 – Rome 1940) was a classical philologist, specializing in Byzantine Greek literature. Trained by Girolamo Vitelli (1849–1935) at the Istituto di Studi Superiori in Florence, he held various teaching and research positions until, in 1901, he became Professor of Greek Literature (and Byzantine Studies, 1906–1917) at the Royal University of Rome (as a successor to Enea Piccolomini, 1844–1910). Although Festa retired from this position in 1937, he remained active as a scholar until his death on 30 May 1940. In 1939, he became Senator of Italy ‘through the agency of the Duce,’ as he himself explained (Gigante 1984: 62). He also was a member of several prestigious academies, including Accademia dei Lincei and Accademia dell’Arcadia.

The many scholarly editions Festa prepared reveal his wide-ranging scholarly interests. They included Jamblichus’ De communi mathematica scientia (1891), the Greek letters of Emperor Frederick II (1894) and Theodore II Lascaris (1897), the odes and fragments of Bacchylides (1898), and De incredibilibus, traditionally attributed to Palaephatus (1902), among other things. Festa is mainly known for his edition of Africa, Petrarch’s Latin epic about the Second Punic War (1926), which he regarded as Italy’s ‘grand national poem’ (Festa 1926: 93) (see also the discussion in Agbamu 2022: 89–93). In addition to being an editor of Greek and Latin texts, Festa was a prolific translator from both ancient Greek and Russian. Festa’s main long-standing interest was the Byzantine world, its language and history, not only in the former Eastern territories of the Roman Empire but also in Sicily and Southern Italy.

While Festa had initially signed Benedetto Croce’s Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals (1925), he eventually associated with Fascist circles and lent his services to the regime of Mussolini. His scholarly work of this period contains statements condoning aspects of Fascism (most notably in Festa 1935, reprinted in 1940). Festa also actively participated in regime-related initiatives to promote classical culture. For instance, he was a member of the Committee for the publication of the national editions of Greek and Latin classics, instigated by the Minister of Education, Pietro Fedele (1925–1929), and executed iussu Beniti Mussolini (Scotti and Cristiano 2002: 345–351). He was also an active member of the Istituto di Studi Romani (Institute for Roman Studies), founded by Carlo Galassi Paluzzi (1893–1972) in 1925 and operating under the honorary presidency of Mussolini (on Festa’s links with Fascism, see also Gigante 1984 and Treves 1997, with the references there).

In addition to translating Benito Mussolini’s speeches into Latin (Mussolini 1936, 1937; cf. Lamers 2017, Luggin 2019), Festa also composed a Latin inscription for the Foro Mussolini (the present-day Foro Italico) (Festa 1937). He did not, however, compose Latin inscriptions for the Città Universitaria (the University’s main campus), as has sometimes been suggested (Treves 1997; cf. D’Elia 1984: 112). The inscriptions of the Città Universitaria were authored by Vincenzo Ussani and Aurelio Giuseppe Amatucci (Nastasi 2022: 214–218).

The main biographical account of Festa is still that of Treves (1997). The collection of articles edited by Traglia (1984) shed light on Festa’s scholarly contributions. The remains of his personal library, preserved in the Library of the Department of Humanistic Studies of the University of Bari, are studied in detail by Bianchi (2021).

Bibliography

Latin texts

Festa, Nicola. 1937. [Inscription for the Foro Mussolini, deleted]. In  Il Foro Mussolini, edited by Opera Nazionale Balilla, 104–5. Milan: Bompiani.

———. 1937. [Inscription for the Foro Mussolini, deleted]. Annali del Fascismo 7 (2): 93–97 (with Italian translation).

———. 1937. [Inscription for the Foro Mussolini, deleted]. Bollettino dell’opera nazionale Balilla 11 (15): 3.

———. 1937. [Inscription for the Foro Mussolini, deleted]. Rivista di scienze applicate all’educazione fisica e giovanile 8 (2–3): 196–97.

Mussolini, Benito. 1936. ‘Ducis oratio ad populum Italicum universum’. Translated by Nicola Festa. Rassegna dei combattenti pubblicata a cura dell’Associazione Naz. Combattenti. Numero Speciale (24 May): 3–5.

———. 1937. La Fondazione dell’Impero nei discorsi del Duce alle grandi adunate del popolo italiano con una traduzione latina di Nicola Festa. Translated by Nicola Festa. Naples: Rispoli.

Other work (selection)

Festa, Nicola. 1926. Saggio sull’ ‘Africa’ del Petrarca. Palermo: Edizioni Sandron.

———. 1930. ‘L’originalità di Virgilio’. La Nuova Antologia 351 (September): 3–33.

———. 1935. Umanesimo. Milan: Ulrico Hoepli.

———. 1940. Umanesimo. 2nd ed. Milan: Ulrico Hoepli.

———. 1997. Ουµανισµός. Τα κλασικά γράµµατα στην Αναγέννηση. Translated by Erkos and Stanes Apostolides. Athens: Ta nea Ellenika.

Petrarca, Francesco. 1926. Francesco Petrarca. L’Africa. Edizione critica per cura di Nicola Festa, corredata di un ritratto e cinque tavole fuori testo. Edizione nazionale delle opere di Francesco Petrarca 1. Firenze: G. C. Sanzoni.

Secondary sources

Agbamu, Samuel. 2022. ‘The Reception of Petrarch’s Africa in Fascist Italy’. International Journal of the Classical Tradition 29 (1): 83–102.

Bianchi, Nunzio. 2021. La biblioteca del filologo: i libri ritrovati di Nicola Festa. Bari: Edizioni di Pagina.

D’Elia, Salvatore. 1984. ‘Nicola Festa e la letteratura augustea’. In Nicola Festa: Atti del Convegno di studi, Matera, 25-26-27 ottobre 1982, edited by Antonio Traglia, 111–24. Venosa: Osanna.

Gigante, Marcello. 1984. ‘Nicola Festa e Girolamo Vitelli’. In Nicola Festa: Atti del Convegno di studi, Matera, 25-26-27 ottobre 1982, edited by Antonio Traglia, 61–84. Venosa: Osanna.

Lamers, Han. 2017. ‘Latinizing Mussolini’s Message: Nicola Festa’s Latin Translation of the “Proclamation of Empire” (1936/7)’. International Journal of the Classical Tradition 24 (2): 198–218.

Luggin, Johanna. 2020. ‘Imperium iam tandem Italiae restitutum est. Lateinische Übersetzungen der Reden Mussolinis zum faschistischen Imperium’. 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.

Montanari, Franco, and Luciano Bossina, eds. s.a. ‘Nicola Festa’. In Catalogus Philologorum Classicorum, s.v. (last accessed on 30 October 2022).

Nastasi, Antonino. 2022. ‘Iscrizioni in latino post-unitarie di Roma: un aggiornamento’. Rationes Rerum 19: 201–28.

Scotti, Mario, and Cristiano, Flavia. 2002. Storia e bibliografia delle edizioni nazionali. Milan: Bonnard.

Traglia, Antonio, ed. 1984. Nicola Festa: Atti del convegno di studi, Matera, 25-26-27 ottobre 1982. Venosa: Osanna.

Treves, Piero. ‘Festa, Nicola’. 1997. In Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 47:292–95. Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana.

Han Lamers