Cornell University
I am a Ph.D. candidate in Classics at Cornell University. My dissertation, Understanding the poets: Greek Literary Exegesis from the Sixth to the Fourth Centuries BCE, studies how ancient readers read, interpreted, and discussed poetry. My interests include Greek and Latin poetry (Homer in particular), ancient scholarship, ancient biographies, and the history of ancient Aristotelianism. Before joining Cornell, I was a student at the Scuola Galileiana di Studi Superiori and I received my BA and MA in Classics from the Università degli Studi di Padova (Italy).
Research related to commentary
In my dissertation, I engage closely with early examples of Greek literary exegesis. I show that, in the Classical Period, poetry was not merely utilized as a repository of moral and stylistic norms. Rather, it emerged as an autonomous object of study. To investigate literary texts, readers composed zetemata, literary problems with corresponding solutions, allegorical treatises, and commentaries. Two texts I focus upon, in particular, are key in investigating the beginnings of Greek commentary tradition, the Derveni Papyrus and Socrates’ discussions of Simonides’ poem in Plato’s Protagoras.
Publications related to commentary
“Ex commentario sapere: Andronico di Rodi, Tolomeo e l’esegesi aristotelica” in (ed. by R. Tondini-M. Bergamo) Filosofia, filologia e scienza in età ellenistica, 47-71. Milano: Ledizioni, (forthcoming)
Review of M. Santamaría (ed.), The Derveni Papyrus: Unearthing Ancient Mysteries. Bryn Mawr Classical Review (2019.10.40)
Other publications
“Andronikos of Rhodes” in (ed. by. S. Schorn-L. Bossina) Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker continued, IV, Leiden-Boston: Brill, (forthcoming)