Antonioli, Carlo

ANTONIOLI, CARLO. - Scholar of the Piarist order, b. at Correggio (Modena) on 2 Sept. 1728, d. at Pisa on 1 Nov. 1800. As a very young man he was sent to Pisa, at the request of Edoardo Corsini, his teacher, a professor at that University, and there he was appointed, in 1752, teacher of logic; on the death of Fr. Corsini, while retaining the chair of philosophy, he became holder of the chair of Greek literature, to which was added the chair of Latin language. He held both of these teaching posts until his death. His Latin orations, still unpublished, delivered every year at the reopening of the Pisan Athenaeum, were greatly celebrated, orations full of splendor, nobility and elegance. He also had a very great knowledge of Greek, of which he well deserved by bringing to light a most useful anthology and that excellent grammar, to which so many Greek scholars are indebted. He also wrote eruditely on philology and antiquities, and he had to sustain scientific polemics in defense of his confrere Corsini. Praised by the greatest literary men of his time, «he joined much learning to rare goodness; modesty was an obstacle to his glory», as G. B. Niccolini pronounced of him.

Leodegario Pieanyol