Corso di laurea magistrale in Filologia,
Letterature e Storia dell'antichità

Before the oral exam, students attending the “Corso di laurea in Filologia, letterature e storia dell'antichità” are required to pass a written exam (“Prova scritta per l'accesso alla magistrale”), which consists in the translation of a classical author’s prose passage from Latin into Italian, with the aid of the dictionary. Students must score no less than 24/30.

Through the translation, the commentary and the critical framing of a passage, the oral examination aims at verifying the acquisition of complex skills by the students: the knowledge of the Latin language and literary tradition, the critical analysis of a text and the consciousness of different methodological approaches, the mastery of philological tools, the clarity, correctness and maturity of expression. The seminar work allows to test such abilities before the exam and to improve them with the help of the teacher; the classroom discussion, moreover, develops the critical reflection skills and the ability to make personal remarks on the proposed issues, while the production of an essay is an exercise in argumentative writing useful for verifying the full scientific maturity of a student.

The course (36 hours, 6 cfu) consists of lectures followed by students' seminars; 6 additional hours will be dedicated to seminars concerning contemporary oratory. 

The expected knowledge and skills will be tested through seminar papers and, at the end of the course, through an oral exam, which consists of at least two questions on the institutional part (translation of a Latin prose text; literary history or critical essays) and at least two questions on the monographic part.

Students are warmly invited to contribute to the course through a seminar. Its topic will be discussed with the professor.

At least two days before presenting the paper, the student must send his written report via email to the teacher; it must be at least 6000 characters long, spaces excluded.

For the comment (philological, linguistic and above all content), the student can use the texts present in the online material and the bibliography published on the course page or even additional texts.

Students preparing a seminar report are invited to use the teacher's guide; texts, bibliography, critical apparatus useful for presentation and discussion in the classroom can be presented in a handout, which the teacher will make available in the teaching material before each seminar.

The cloak of the word. Rhetoric, persuasion and argumentation in Latin antiquity with an appendix on contemporary oratory. Readings from Aristotle, Cicero, Auctor ad Herennium, Quintilian, Rhetores Latini Minores and Ausonius, with seminars on contemporary oratory of M. L. King, B. Obama and D. Trump.

The students of the Course in Philology, Literature and History of Antiquity, and other students who may be interested, will prepare a seminar paper, with oral and written report, in the second part of the course.

The oral exam will focus on:

PROGRAM FOR THOSE WHO ATTEND THE COURSE AND PREPARE A SEMINAR PAPER

1. The topics of the lectures, with reading, translation anc commentary of the discussed texts. The list will be illustrated to the attending students and will include the following texts: Aristotle (in Greek for classics students, in translation for others), Rhetorica 1355b, 25-1358a 35, Cicero, De inventione 1, 1-3; De oratore 1, 16-20 and 3, 213-217, Topica 1-22; In Catilinam 1; Auctor ad Herennium 1, Quintilian 10, 11, 12, Rhetores Latini Minores, Ausonius, Gratiarum actio. Prof. Balbo will prepare a dossier in .pdf.

2. The following essays:

- L. Pernot, La retorica dei Greci e dei Romani, Palermo, Palumbo, 2006.

- 2 other essays from in the list indicated in the Bibliography

3. The reading and translation of Cicero, Pro Caelio and Virgil, Aeneis, book IV, which replace the history of literature if it has been part of a previous program. Otherwise, students will study a part of history of Roman literature on: G. GARBARINO, L. PASQUARIELLO, Vivamus, Turin, Paravia, 2016 or equivalent high school volume with anthology. In this case, the volume must be checked by the teacher. For the late antiquity part, we invite you to integrate with F. GASTI, Profilo storico della letteratura tardolatina, available online at http:// archive.paviauniversitypress.it/didattica/gasti_lett-tardolatina-2013/gasti_profilo_2013.pdf

The authors on which to focus mainly but not exhaustively the attention are:

1. I) from the origins to the age of Augustus (if the student has not studied anything of Roman literature): Livius Andronicus, Nevius, Plautus, Ennius, Cato, Terence, Lucilius, Lucretius, Catullus, Cicero, Caesar, Cornelius Nepos, Sallust, Varro, Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid, Livy;

1. II) imperial age (if the student has already studied the first part of Roman literature): Seneca the Elder, Phaedrus, Curtius Rufus, Seneca the Younger, Lucan, Persius, Petronius, Statius, Martial, Quintilian, Pliny the Elder, Juvenal, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Tacitus, Apuleius, Ausonius, Ammianus Marcellinus, Claudianus, Macrobius.

4. Presentation and discussion of the seminar paper

PROGRAM FOR THOSE WHO ATTEND THE COURSE AND DO NOT PREPARE A SEMINAR PAPER

4a. Points 1, 2, 3 remain valid. Those who for some reason do not want to prepare the seminar report will choose with the teacher two further articles or two book chapters, among those indicated in the Bibliography

PROGRAM FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT ATTEND THE COURSE

4b. Points 1, 2, 3, 4bis remain valid. In addition, non-attending students will read two other essays chosen from the bibliography, the Oratio prima in Catilinam and Eclogues 2, 8, 10.

Aristotelis Ars rhetorica. Recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit W. D. Ross, Oxonii, e typographeo Clarendoniano, 1959

Cornifici Rhetorica ad C. Herennium. Introduzione, testo critico, commento a cura di Gualtiero Calboli, Bologna, R. Patron, 1969

M. Tullii Ciceronis De oratore. Edidit Kazimierz F. Kumaniecki, Leipzig , B. G. Teubner, 1969

Q. Fabi Quintiliani Institutionis oratoriae libri duodecim. Recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit M. Winterbottom, Oxonii, e Typographeo Clarendoniano, 1970.

Cicero, De oratore. A commentary on book 3., 96-230, by Jacob Wisse, Michael Winterbottom, Elaine Fantham, Heidelberg, Universitätsverlag Winter, 2008.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, Topica. Ed. with transl., introd. and commentary by Tobias Reinhardt, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2003. 

Rhetores Latini Minores emend. K. Halm, Lipsiae 1863.

The Works of Ausonius. Edited with translation and commentary by R.P.H. Green, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1991.

Italian translations for personal study 

Aristotele, Retorica, a cura di Silvia Gastaldi, Roma, Carocci, 2014.

Retorica e Poetica di Aristotele, a cura di Marcello Zanatta, Torino, Unione tipografico-editrice torinese, 2004

[Cicerone], La retorica a Gaio Erennio, a cura di Filippo Cancelli, Milano, A. Mondadori, 1998

Marco Tullio Cicerone, Dell'oratore; con un saggio introduttivo di Emanuele Narducci, Milano, Biblioteca universale Rizzoli, 1994

Quintiliano, Institutio oratoria. Edizione con testo a fronte a cura di Adriano Pennacini, Torino , G. Einaudi, 2001.

Ausonio, Opere, a cura di A. Pastorino, Torino, UTET, 1971.

Other bibliogrpahy

A. Balbo, Traces of actio in the fragmentary Roman orators, in C. Gray, A Balbo, R. Marshall, C. Steel (eds.), Reading Republican Oratory: Reconstructions, Contexts, Receptions, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018, 227-246.

Id., Profili argomentativi del discorso di Catilina in Sall. Cat. 20-22, «Philologia Antiqua». 11, 2018, 9-24.

Id., Roman Oratory and Power under the Flavians: some case studies from Pliny the Younger in F. Bessone, M. Fucecchi (eds.), The literary genres in the age of Flavians. Canons, Trasformations, Receptions, Atti del convegno internazionale di Torino 18-19 settembre 2013, Berlin - New York, De Gruyter, 2018, 83-100.

Id., Ausonio oratore: tecniche argomentative e prassi retorica nella gratiarum actio, in E. Wolff (ed.), Ausone en 2015 : bilan et nouvelles perspectives, «Collection des Études Augustiniennes – Antiquité 204», Paris, Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2018, ISBN : 978-2-85121-294-8, ISSN : 1158-7032, 159-182.

Id., “Classici” nell’oratoria tardoantica: riflessioni sul ruolo dei riferimenti letterari nella gratiarum actio di Ausonio, Atti del Convegno internazionale (IX romeno-italiano) Ideologia del potere – potere dell’ideologia: forme di espressione letteraria, storiografica e artistica nell’antichità e nel Medioevo (Università Alexandru Ioan Cuza - Iasi, Romania), «Classica et Christiana» 10/1, 2015, 15-32. ISSN: 1842 – 3043

Id., Late Antique Non-Christian Roman Oratory: Reflections and Perspectives with Particular Attention to Fragmentary Speeches, «Horizons. Seoul Journal of Humanities» 6.1. 2013, 43-71, ISSN 2093-5943

Id., Old Delivery and Modern Demagogy. How Ancient Oratorical Style and Delivery can Help us to Understand Modern Populist Speakers, «Informal Logic» 39, 4, 2019, 329-345. [available online]

A. Pennacini, Discorsi eloquenti da Ulisse a Obama e oltre con una giunta fino a papa Francesco, Alessandria, Dell’Orso, 2015 (analysis of at leat 3 speeches, 1 Greek, 1 Latin and 1 modern) [this choice is equivalent to a single paper]

For individual additions to the contents of the course (review of Latin syntax; elements of prosody and metric) we recommend the following texts

A. Traina, G. Bernardi Perini, Propedeutica al latino universitario, sesta edizione riveduta e aggiornata a cura di C. Marangoni, Bologna, Pàtron, 1998⁶, capitoli I-VII;

A. Traina, T. Bertotti, Sintassi normativa della lingua latina, Bologna, Cappelli, 1965 and later editions, oppure: G.B. Conte, R. Ferri, Corso di latino. Lingua e civiltà, vol. 1: Grammatica, Firenze, Le Monnier, 2005;

S. Boldrini, Fondamenti di prosodia e metrica latina, Roma, Carocci, 2004, oppure: S. Boldrini, La prosodia e la metrica dei Romani, Roma, La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1992.