Franco D'Intino

Università degli Studi di Roma 'La Sapienza

Critical edition of Leopardi's translation from Greek moral prose and the use of Greek ethics in the early nineteenth century

2007-2008

D'Intino received both his Laurea and his PhD (1992) from the University of Rome "La Sapienza", where he is now Professor of Italian literature and Comparative Literature in the Faculty of Oriental Studies. 

He has been lecturer in Italian literature at the Universities of Amsterdam (NL), Birmingham (UK), and Perugia. 

His first book (1989, 2nd edition 1998) was on L'autobiografia moderna (theory and history of the genre). In the last fifteen years his main research interest has been the work of Giacomo Leopardi, from both a philological and a comparativist point of view. He published the critical edition of Leopardi's Scritti e frammenti autobiografici (1995), an annotated edition of his verse translations from Greek and Latin, Poeti greci e latini (1999) and twenty-something essays on various aspects of his thought. He is working on the critical edition of Leopardi's prose translations from Greek (Isocrates, Epictetus, etc.) and on a book of essays on the Operette morali. 

Other research areas include Pirandello's short narrative (L'antro della bestia, 1992) and literary theory. 

In 1998 he founded, with Michael Caesar, the "Leopardi Centre" at the University of Birmingham. As Director of the Centre, he co-organised the International Conference "Leopardi and the book in the age of Romanticism" (October 1998), and many seminars, lectures and events. He is also chief editor (with Michael Caesar) of the first complete translation (in progress) of Leopardi's Zibaldone into English.