Not much is currently known about Giovanni Napoleone, a professor of literature from Livorno. His Carmen lustrale praising Fascist ideology won magna laus at the Certamen Hoeufftianum in 1928 (Napoleone 1928; Sacré 2020: 15). In 1937, Napoleone authored Italia nova, a collection of Italian and Latin texts on the workings of the Fascist regime. The same year, he translated several of Mussolini’s speeches as well as a collection of shorter quotations. These translations were published as part of Mussoliniana (Napoleone 1937), for which most, if not all, translations were produced by Napoleone. Napoleone’s Mussoliniana, Italia nova, and Carmen lustrale were published together in a Latin schoolbook in 1937 (Levi & Bini 1937). Furthermore, he translated Giosuè Carducci’s Ode to Giuseppe Garibaldi into Latin (Napoleone 1933). More research on Napoleone is needed.

Bibliography

Latin texts

Carducci, Giosuè. 1933. “Traduzione dell’ode del Carducci ‘A Giuseppe Garibaldi.’” Translated by Giovanni Napoleone. Il mondo classico 11 (3–4): 152–54.

Napoleone, Giovanni. 1928. Carmen lustrale Ioannis Napoleone Liburnensis sive Triturritani in Certamine poetico Hoeufftiano magna laude ornatum. Edited by Academia Regia Disciplinarum Nederlandica. Carmina certaminis poetici Hoeufftiani. Amsterdam: Academia Regia Disciplinarum Nederlandica.

———. 1937a. ‘Italia nova. In Il latino come lingua viva: ad uso delle scuole medie di ogni grado (capitoli di saggio), edited by Enrico Levi and Arturo Bini, 331–337. Florence: Vallechi.

———. 1937b. ‘Mussoliniana’. In Il latino come lingua viva: ad uso delle scuole medie di ogni grado (capitoli di saggio), edited by Enrico Levi and Arturo Bini, 339–57. Florence: Vallechi.

Secondary literature

IJsewijn, Jozef. 1961. “Conspectus poetarum Latinorum saeculi vicesimi.” Euphrosyne 3: 149–90.

Sacré, Dirk. 2020. “Die neulateinische Literatur in Mussolinis Italien.” In Studies in the Latin Literature and Epigraphy of Italian Fascism, edited by Han Lamers, Bettina Reitz-Joosse, and Valerio Sanzotta, 13–50. Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia 46. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

Erlend Myklebust