Ignazio Cazzaniga (31 August, 1911 – 25 July, 1974) was an Italian classicist and university professor, professor of Latin literature at the University of Milan.
A prolific textual critic, he published editions of texts by Catullus, St. Ambrose and Antoninus Liberalis.
Born in Sampierdarena, he enrolled at the University of Milan in 1928, where studied classics and graduated in 1933, tutored by Luigi Castiglioni; his dissertation was titled "Il mito di Procne e Filomela nella tradizione greca e romana" ("The myth of Procne and Philomela in Greek and Roman tradition"). After graduating, he begun teaching in Monza high school and served as complement non-commissioned officer in the Italian Army. He fought in Greece during the World War II; captured in Rhodes, he was sent to Germany as prisoner and remained there until 1945.
In 1951, Cazzaniga won a professorship in Latin at the University of Pisa. The next year he moved back to Milan, taking Castiglioni's place as Professor of Latin literature; in 1957 he also was assigned to teach Classical philology, and taught both courses until his death. In the 1952/1953 academic year he taught at the University of Pisa as substitute professor. In 1966, the University of Milan created a second Chair of Latin literature which was assigned to Alberto Grilli, who also had studied under Castiglioni.
In 1968, during the protests, a group of students occupied his office in the University, and wrote "HIC MANEBIMVS OPTIME" on the wall. Cazzaniga, when arrived to the office, is quoted to have replied "Anca mi!" ("Me too!", in Milanese dialect) to the occupiers and to have started a conversation influenced by Plautus' irony and comic.
From 1961/62 to 1966/67, Cazzaniga was director of the Institute of Papyrology of the University of Milan, and from 1969/1970 to his death, he directed the Institute of Classical philology (keeping the office at the Institute of Papyrology as 'direttore incaricato'). Thanks to his managerial skills, he reorganized the activities of the Institute and encouraged the publication of the papyri discovered in Tebtunis by Achille Vogliano before WWII, also arranging the purchase of new pieces to enlarge the collection. He edited the reprint of the first volume of the University of Milan papyri and organized the preparation of further volumes in the series, as well as collateral works.[1] Furthermore, he encouraged the editing and publication of the Demotic papyri of the Milan collection, developed Coptic studies in the same institution and helped organizing, together with the Università Cattolica, the International Congress of Papyrology in 1965. Under his term as director, the Institute of Papyrology also reopened the archeological excavations in Medînet Madi, where they worked until 1970 and again, after Cazzaniga's death, in 1976.
In 1956 he was nominated correspondent of the Istituto Lombardo, and in 1965 was promoted to full membership; in 1971 he entered the directory board of the Association Internationale des Papyrologues. He had several scholars and collaborators, including Egyptologist Edda Bresciani (who directed the archeological excavations in Egypt, on his behalf) and philologist Mario Geymonat.
Ignazio Cazzaniga died in Rapallo in the summer of 1974, while on vacation, for a post-operative embolus. Other than a scholar, he was an original author and composed short poems both in Greek and Latin, which (with the exception of a few) he left unpublished.[2]
Cazzaniga studied both Greek and Latin literature, specializing in Hellenistic, Roman and late antique literature. However, he had an uncommonly wide range of interests and wrote on Latin medieval and – occasionally – Byzantine matters.[3] He also studied Christian and apocryphal literature, mainly Christian Latin literature and the Gospel of Nicodemus (of which he had planned a critical edition).[4] He also wrote on the fragments of Aeschylus and Sophocles,[5] Euphorion,[6] Callimachus,[7] and Parthenius,[8] on Apuleius[9] and other authors, including Pindar,[10] Ennius,[11] Lucan,[12] Ovid,[13] Statius, Cassiodorus,[14] Claudian, Corippus,[15] the Christian bishop Asterius,[16] Nonnus and the Appendix Vergiliana, with contributions on the Pervigilium Veneris[17] and the Ciris.[18] He studied Medieval lexicography[19] and wrote on Papias.[20]
He published critical editions of Catullus,[21] of the De lapsu Susannae,[22] of the virginal homilies of St. Ambrose of Milan,[23] of the Priapeia with the Pervirgilium Veneris,[24] of the Vita s. Emiliani written by Braulio of Zaragoza[25] and of Antoninus Liberalis,[26] also publishing textual criticism on the latter.[27] In his later years he became interested in Nicander of Colophon, published several contributions on the text and the scholia and interpretative essays on his poems and was working on a critical edition, which he couldn't complete.[28]
Cazzaniga was never a papyrologist, but
In 1937, he edited six literary papyri for the first volume of the University of Milan papyri[29] and published two essays in scientific periodicals,[30] continuing his researches in the following years with some essays on texts preserved by papyri[31] and publishing more literary fragments from the Milan collection.[32] In 1965 and 1967, he directed two volumes of the University of Milan papyri (and), contributing to the former with the edition of five pieces;[33] he also had planned the general structure for vol. VII of the P. Mil. Vogliano, appeared in 1981.[34] Occasionally, he wrote of numismatics.[35]
Other than the critical editions, he published monographs on St. Ambrose's style,[36] on the myth of Itys in Greek and Latin literatures[37] and on the manuscript tradition of the De lapsu Susannae.[38] In 1962 he published a History of Latin literature.[39] At the time of his death, he was working on an illustrated edition of the fragments of Nossis and on a translation of E. Lobel and D. Page's Poetarum Lesbiorum fragmenta, both appeared posthumously.[40] In Milan, he also launched and directed a series of scientific publications, "Testi e documenti per lo studio dell'antichità", which he directed until his death; occasionally, he revised and critically contributed to the monographs.[41]
His bibliography, which has been collected by Massimo Gioseffi in 1993, counts more than 230 titles. Two essays of his on Virgil, originally published in the 1960s, were re-edited in the year 2000. At the time of his death, he was working on Procopius and Pytheas.
Journals are abbreviated according to the following sigla established by the "Année Philologique":All entries are arranged chronologically and, for multiple articles published in the same year, alphabetically. Articles by Cazzaniga and other contributors follow those by Cazzaniga only.