Ettore Stampini (1855–1930), born in Fenestrelle (Turin), was a well-known scholar of Latin literature. He studied literature and philosophy at the University of Turin. Before he started his academic career in 1880, he taught at various secondary schools in and around Turin (Piras 2019: 20). In 1889 he became professor of Latin at the University of Messina and in 1897 he accepted the chair of Latin at the University of Turin, where around 1914 Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) attended his classes on Catullus (Leonetti 1978: 86). Stampini held various leadership positions, including that of vice-president of the university (1927). He moreover directed the journal Rivista di Filologia e d’Istruzione Classica (1897–1922). As a scholar, Stampini published widely on Latin literature, including Vergil, Lucretius, and Catullus, with a special interest in metrics. He also produced quite conservative editions of Vergil, Terence, Plautus, Horace, and Cicero. Additionally, Stampini wrote a sizeable number of speeches, letters, and inscriptions in Latin (selections in Stampini 1917: 385–444; Stampini 1921: 365–463; Stampini 1926: 233–276). Stampini described himself as “a Fascist professor of Latin eloquence” (Bragantini 1998: 64) and put his skills to the service of the regime. Specifically, he promoted the active use of Latin and published two, partly overlapping, collections of laudatory “book inscriptions” (Sacré 2020: 19n19) about Benito Mussolini and Fascism (Stampini 1924, repr. in Stampini 1926: 245–247 and Stampini [1929], repr. in Bragantini 1998: 73–80). He also prepared an edition of Horace’s Carmen saeculare with translation and notes for a wider audience (Stampini 1927; Bongiovanni and Levi 1976: 67n59; Strobl 2015: 737–738). For Stampini’s biography, see further Piras (2019), with the references there. More research on his Latin work is needed.

Bibliography

Latin texts

Stampini, Ettore. 1917. Studi di letteratura e filologia latina. Con una appendice di iscrizioni ed altri scritti in lingua latina. Turin: Bocca.

———. 1921. Nel mondo latino: studi di letteratura e filologia. Seconda serie. Con una appendice di scritti varii italiani e latini in prosa e in versi. Turin: Bocca.

———. 1923. ‘Elegiaca epigrammata et inscriptiones’. Atti della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino 58: 351–360.

———. 1924. Triptychon mussolinianum: inscriptiones in honorem Beniti Mussolini. Turin: Ex officina libraria Vincentii Bona.

———. 1926. Sangue e pensiero latino: commemorazioni, letture, e studi varii di letteratura e filologia. Terza serie. Con appendice di scritti latini e italiani in prosa e in versi. Turin: Bocca.

———. [1929]. Pentaptychon mussolinianum: cinque iscrizioni latine in onore di Benito Mussolini, con la versione italiana dell’autore. Turin: Stab. tip. F. Villarboito.

Other work (selection)

Stampini, Ettore. 1927. Il Carme secolare di Orazio ed il suo preambolo (Carm. 4, 6). Con introduzione illustrativa sui ludi secolari augustei. Turin: Chiantore.

Secondary sources

Bongiovanni, Bruno, and Fabio Levi. 1976. L’Università di Torino durante il fascismo: le facoltà umanistiche e il politecnico. Turin: G. Giappichelli.

Bragantini, Paola. 1998. ‘Il “latinista fascista”. Contributo alla biografia di Ettore Stampini’. Quaderni di Storia dell’Università di Torino 2 (2): 61–80.

Leonetti, Alfonso. 1978. ‘Un ricordo di Gramsci studente in lettere’. Belfagor 33 (1): 85–86.

Piras, Giorgio. 2019. ‘Stampini, Ettore’. In Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 94:20–22. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.

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.

Strobl, Wolfgang. 2015. ‘Possis nihil urbe Roma visere maius: Zur politischen und musikalischen Rezeption des Carmen saeculare im italienischen Faschismus und zu einer Vertonung Aldo Aytanos (1926/27)’. Latomus 74 (3): 735–778.

Han Lamers