Giunio Garavani (1881–1943) was a Latin poet, dramatist, translator, and historian. He studied literature and philosophy in Rome and law in Urbino. He taught at various schools in Romania and Italy before taking up a position at the Reale Istituto Magistrale of Ancona. Like Luigi Taberini (d. 1933), Garavani formed part of the circle of Latin poets around Alessandro Zappata (1860–1929) (IJsewijn 1961: 184). During the ventennio fascista, he successfully participated in various Latin competitions, including the Certamen Locrense (Garavani 1930a; van Binnebeke 2020: 250n26), the Certamen Ruspantini (Garavani 1932; van Binnebeke 2020: 283), and the Certamen Hoeufftianum (van Binnebeke 2020: 276, 279, 283, 295). He also published Latin compositions in Il mondo classico (van Binnebeke 2020: 279n159, 299n257) and Alma Roma (Lapedona 1948: 154) and wrote a Latin eulogy on Armando Diaz (1861–1928) (Garavani 1928; Cristini 2016: 152n3). In addition to his Latin work, he wrote Italian poems, plays, and historical works (especially on the Franciscan order in the Middle Ages and the history of the Marche region). Garavani was also active as a translator. He rendered Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Aulis in Italian verse, for which he was awarded the first prize from the Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico in Syracuse in 1930 (Garavani 1930b). The play was performed in Garavani’s version (directed by Franco Literati) in the theatre of Syracuse that same year (more information on the performance can be found here). Garavani also wrote some smaller dramatical work of his own as well as historical and political essays. In the 1920s and 1930s, he published annotated editions of classical authors, including Plautus, Vergil, Suetonius, and Phaedrus. A selection of Garavani’s work is listed in Lapedona (1948: 153n1), to be consulted with Sacré (1990: 334). Garavani’s archive is kept in the Biblioteca Benincasa in Ancona. More research on his life and work is needed.

Bibliography

Latin texts

Garavani, Giunio. 1928. In mortem Armandi Diaz. Arezzo: [F. Schegg]. This is a very rare booklet. A copy is held by the Biblioteca comunale dell’Archiginnasio in Bologna.

———. 1930a. Ifigenia in Aulide. Euripide. Syracuse: Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico.

———. 1930b. Lumina et oscula. Carmen locrensi certamine laude ornatum. Jesi: Tip. Edit. Flori.

———. 1932. Pervigilium: un veglione. Poemetto giudicato uno dei due migliori nel Concorso ‘Ruspantini’ di poesia latina. Ancona: Premiato stab. tip. S.T.A.M.P.A. ex Combattenti. The Biblioteca di Studi Umanistici dell’Università di Pavia has a copy with a personal, handwritten dedication to Massimo Lenchantin de Gubernatis (1884-1950).

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.

Cristini, Marco. 2016. ‘De Latinis litteris mundano finito bello’. Vox Latina 52: 152–172.

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

Sacré, Dirk. 1990. ‘Conspectus poetarum Latinorum 1900-1960: Supplementum’. Humanistica Lovaniensia 39: 328–39.

Han Lamers