View source for Domenico Comparetti

{{Short description|Italian scholar (1835–1927)}}
{{Update-EB|date=January 2016}}
{{Infobox scholar
| image = Domenico Comparetti.jpg
| caption = ''Domenico Comparetti picture''
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1835|6|27|df=y}}
| birth_place = Rome
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1927|1|20|1835|6|2|df=y}}
| death_place = Florence
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| alma_mater = University of Rome
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}}'''Domenico Comparetti''' (27 June 1835 – 20 January 1927) was an Italian scholar. He was born in [[Rome]] and died in [[Florence]].

==Life==

He studied at the [[University of Rome La Sapienza]], took his degree in 1855 in natural science and mathematics, and entered his uncle's pharmacy as an assistant. His scanty leisure was, however, given to study. He learned [[Greek language|Greek]] by himself, and gained facility in the modern language by conversing with the Greek students at the university. In spite of all disadvantages, he not only mastered the language but became one of the chief classical scholars of [[Italy]].<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=1|wstitle=Comparetti, Domenico |volume=6 |pages=803-804}}</ref>

In 1857 he published, in the ''[[Rheinisches Museum]]'', a translation of some recently discovered fragments of [[Hypereides]], with a dissertation on that [[orator]]. This was followed by a notice of the [[annalist]] [[Granius Licinianus]], and one on the oration of Hypereides on the [[Lamian War]]. In 1859 he was appointed professor of Greek at [[Pisa]] on the recommendation of the [[duke of Sermoneta]]. A few years later he was called to a similar post at [[Florence]], remaining emeritus professor at [[Pisa]] also.<ref name="EB1911"/> He subsequently took up his residence in [[Rome]] as lecturer on Greek antiquities and greatly interested himself in the [[Roman Forum]] excavations. He was a member of the governing bodies of the academies of [[Milan]], [[Venice]], [[Naples]] and [[Turin]].<ref name="EB1911"/> He was appointed [[Senate of the Republic (Italy)|senator]] in 1891.

In Pisa, in 1863, he met Leone Raffalovich, a businessman from [[Odessa]]. After a short engagement, he married Leone's daughter [[Elena Raffalovich|Elena]] on 13 August, and in 1865 their daughter Laura was born. Their different natures meant that the couple drifted apart, and in 1872 Elena left the family to settle in Venice. Laura married [[Luigi Adriano Milani]], and Domenico Comparetti, wishing that their last name should be transmitted to her daughter's male descendants, got the royal concession to the addition of his name to those of the Milani grandchildren. His great-grandson was Don [[Lorenzo Milani]].<ref>[http://www.donlorenzomilani.it/la-madre/ Barbiana e la sua Scuola | La Famiglia (Italian)]</ref>

==Works==
The list of Comparetti's writings is long and varied. Of his works in classical literature, the best known are an edition of the ''Euxenippus'' of Hypereides, and monographs on [[Pindar]] and [[Sappho]]. He also edited the great inscription which contains a collection of the municipal laws of [[Gortyn code|Gortyn]] in [[Crete]], discovered on the site of the ancient city.<ref name="EB1911"/><ref name="Sandys1908">{{cite book|author=Sir John Edwin Sandys|title=A history of classical scholarship ...|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0mJiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA244|year=1908|publisher=At the University press|pages=244–}}</ref>

In the ''[[Kalevala|Kalewala]] and the Traditional Poetry of the Finns'' (English translation by I. M. Anderton, 1898) he discusses the national epic of [[Finland]] and its heroic songs, with a view to solving the problem whether an epic could be composed by the interweaving of such national songs. He comes to a negative conclusion, and applies this reasoning to the [[Homer]]ic problem. He treats this question again in a treatise on the so-called [[Pisistratus|Peisistratean]] edition of Homer (''La Commissione omerica di Pisistrato'', 1881).<ref name="EB1911"/>

His ''Researches concerning the Book of Sindibad'' were translated in the ''Proceedings of the [[Folk-Lore Society]]''. His ''[[Virgil|Vergil]] in the Middle Ages'' (translated into English by E. F. M. Benecke, 1895) traces the strange vicissitudes by which the great [[Augustus|Augustan]] poet became successively grammatical fetich, Christian prophet and wizard. Together with [[Alessandro d'Ancona]], Comparetti edited a collection of Italian national songs and stories (9 vols, Turin, 1870–1891), many of which had been collected and written down by himself for the first time.<ref name="EB1911"/>

In 1879, a number of small golden tablets were discovered in tombs in [[Thurii]]. Several years later, Comparetti asserted that these lamellae were [[Orphic]], interpreting lines upon these and other such tablets as attestation of "the main principles or the Orphic doctrine on psychogony and metempsychosis". In these artefacts, he read traces of the [[Zagreus#Orphic Dionysus Zagreus|myth of the dismemberment]] of [[Dionysus]], in which humans supposedly inherit an "original guilt" for the [[Titans]]' murder of the young god.<ref>Edmonds 2013, p. 55.</ref> His ideas were adopted by a number of other scholars in his time, and have had a mark upon subsequent scholarship.<ref>Edmonds, p. 56.</ref>

==Notes==
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==References==
* Edmonds, Radcliffe G., ''Redefining Ancient Orphism: A Study in Greek Religion'', Cambridge University Press, 2013. {{ISBN|978-1-107-03821-9}}.

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[[Category:1835 births]]
[[Category:1927 deaths]]
[[Category:Italian classical scholars]]
[[Category:Sapienza University of Rome alumni]]
[[Category:Corresponding fellows of the British Academy]]