Enrica Malcovati

by Graham Whitaker, University of Glasgow

Recent discussion over monolingual classical scholarship and the primacy of English, initiated in an article by Alexander Rubel,[1] has brought to the foreground not only aspects, such as the preference of many publishers for the English language and its detrimental effect on the variety of other languages that also contribute significantly to classical scholarship, but also the risk that older work published in these languages has been overlooked. This has an effect on the history of scholarship, and in particular biography, where the best work is often to be found in national biographies,[2] and consequently may not be easily available to students or scholars who are unable to read the relevant language. I offer here a brief account of one important scholar from the twentieth century, who achieved great distinction in her own country, Italy, but is perhaps hardly known or remembered now in anglophone countries, except by scholars working on Roman oratory.

Enrica Malcovati was born in Pavia in October 1894 and died in January 1990. She studied at the University of Pavia from 1913 to 1917, where her studies and future career were directed in particular by Carlo Pascal and Plinio Fraccaro. In 1913 Pascal had founded the periodical Athenaeum, which Malcovati was later to edit, and in 1916, after Italy had sided in WW1 with Britain and France, he began the Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum Paravianum series with his own edition of Catullus, as a replacement for the Teubner texts from Germany.

Malcovati’s first published article on the fragments of writings by, or attributed to, Augustus was appeared in volume 7 (1919) of Athenaeum [p. 47–65] and this led to her edition, issued in 1921 as volume 38 of the Paravianum texts. Her interest in fragmentary works continued in a series of articles in Athenaeum on both Greek and Latin writers. When Pascal died prematurely in 1926 at the age of 59, Malcovati wrote a memorial notice together with a full bibliography, published in the October issue of the periodical. From 1927 onwards she took on the task of secretaryship (managing editor) for Athenaeum, with Fraccaro as editor. This partnership lasted until 1959, when Fraccaro died in November of that year, and, for a time (1960–1963), she became the sole editor.

Having previously taught in schools from 1917 onwards, she became a private teacher at the University of Pavia in 1930, while continuing to teach at the Liceo in Pavia. 1930 was also the year in which her most significant work, the three volumes of Oratorum Romanorum fragmenta were published. In his memorial notice of Malcovati,[3] Giancarlo Mazzoli noted that she viewed her editions as open-ended; several of them, including the Augustus fragments, the Oratorum … fragmenta, and editions of Nepos and Florus were published in multiple editions. In 1940 she moved to Cagliari in Sardinia, to take up the Professorship of Latin, and there followed a series of books for students, at the rate, more or less, of one a year, beginning with a short study of Lucan, and including two books from a series of eight on women in ancient Rome, published by the Istituto di Studi Romani. Her most important publication from this period was the 1943 study of Cicero and poetry, in which Malcovati again returned to fragmentary texts, and discussed Cicero’s interaction with both Greek and Latin poets. She returned to Pavia in 1946, initially as Professor of Greek, changing to the Latin chair in 1950. During this period she wrote a book on Anne Dacier, published in 1952, and articles on Cicero’s Brutus; her edition of this was first published in 1965 in the Teubner series. She retired in 1969, but still continued to edit Athenaeum, which by the 1950s had become international in its outlook and contents, including at least one article by Ronald Syme.[4]

Her career, which included administrative duties at the University, was unusual in some ways, in that she taught and published on both Greek (Musaeus, Hero and Leander and Lycurgus) and Latin literature, and was never content to leave a work which she thought she could subsequently expand and improve. Her work on Latin literature, notably oratory and historiography, also led her to write on Roman society. In addition she continued until 1989 to edit and oversee a periodical which now ran to over 500 pages annually. In 1964, the year of her seventieth birthday, volume 52 [N.S. 42] of Athenaeum was published as a Festschrift for Malcovati, with a distinguished list of contributors, including Arnaldo Momigliano, Lily Ross Taylor, and Ernst Badian. The thirty-six essays range widely over Latin and Greek literature, and history. Other honours came her way: in the following year she received an honorary doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vienna, and in 1978 she was elected to membership of the Accademia dei Lincei. After her death in 1990 a collection of her essays was published, together with a bibliography. The 1990 issue of the periodical Bollettino dei classici was dedicated to her memory,[5] and in October 1994 a conference was held in Pavia to celebrate the 100th anniversary of her birth, with papers from the conference being published in 1996.[6] Malcovati’s home city, Pavia, has also named a street after her, the Via Enrica Malcovati.

Bibliography of cited works by Malcovati

(ed.) Imperatoris Caesaris Augusti operum fragmenta. Turin, 1921(1st ed.); 1928(2nd); 1948(3rd); 1962(4th); 1969(5th).

(ed.) Oratorum Romanorum fragmenta. Turin, 1930(1st); 1955(2nd); 1967(3rd); 1976(4th).

(ed.) Cornelii Nepotis quae exstant. Turin, 1934(1st); 1945(2nd); 1964(3rd).

(ed.) L. Annaei Flori quae exstant. Rome, 1938(1st); 1972(2nd).

M. Anneo Lucano. Milan, 1940 (reprinted: Brescia, 1947).

Cicerone e la poesia. Pavia, 1943. (Annali della Facoltà di lettere e di filosofia della Università di Cagliari; vol. 13).

Clodia, Fulvia, Marzia, Terenzia. Rome, 1944.

Donne, ispiratrici di poeti nell’antica Roma. Rome, 1945.

(ed.) Museo, Ero e Leandro. Milan, 1947.

Madame Dacier, una gentildonna filologa del gran secolo. Florence, 1952.

(ed.) M. Tulli Ciceronis Brutus. Leipzig, 1965(1st); 1970(2nd).

(ed.) Licurgo, Orazione contro Leocrate e frammenti. Rome, 1966.

(ed., with Mario Marzi & Pietro Leone) Oratori attici minori. Vol. 1. Turin, 1977.

Florilegio critico di filologia e storia. Como, 1990 [posthumous].

Notes

[1] A. Rubel, ‘Quo vadis Altertumswissenschaft?: the command of foreign languages and the future of classical studies’, Classical World: 112:3 (2019) 193–223. This gave rise to discussion on the Classicists list Digest for 22–23 November, #2019–316 and 23–24 November, #2019–317.

[2] A full account of Malcovati’s life and work by Claudia Montuschi is given in volume 68 (2007) of the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani; also online at http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/enrica-malcovati_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ — accessed 3 December 2019. It includes details of some of Malcovati’s editorial work that I have omitted.

[3] G. Mazzoli, ‘Enrica Malcovati: la presenza della lezione’, Athenaeum: 78 [N.S. 68] (1990) iii-ix.

[4] R. Syme, ‘Transpadana Italia’, Athenaeum: 73 [N.S. 63] (1985) 28–36. Reprinted in Roman papers, vol. 5 (1988) 431–439.

[5] Bollettino dei classici. Serie terza, fasc. 11.

[6] Per Enrica Malcovati: atti del convegno di studi nel centenario della nascita (Pavia 21–22 ottobre 1994). Como, 1996. (Biblioteca di Athenaeum; 31).