SALVATORE QUASIMODO E IL PROGETTO DELL’ANTOLOGIA DI AUTORI LATINI

Abstract

The paper focuses on Quasimodo’s publishing project regarding an Anthology of Latin authors which Quasimodo started in 1942 but that was never published. The anthological corpus is kept in the modern authors section of the Fondo manoscritti at the University of Pavia, and it consists of over 400 typewritten pages and presents numerous editorial corrections made
by the author. The auctores section addresses the classical authors that are most studied in schools (Caesar, Cicero, Catullus, Virgil, Ovid) while also extending on Late Antiquity literature (Augustine, Eutropius) and uniquely opening to modern authors (Petrarch, Poliziano, Pontano). The introduction, text and mainly grammatical footnotes make it clear that the Anthology is school-oriented, while also highlighting its possible analogies and peculiarities compared to other anthologies and stories about Latin literature that were written in the first fifty years of the 1900s. At the end of the study, we discover a unique and so far little-known aspect of Quasimodo’s relationship with the classics.