ARCANGELI, GIUSEPPE

ARCANGELI, GIUSEPPE. - B. at S. Marcello Pistoiese on 13 Dec. 1807, d. at Firenze on 17 Sept. 1855; he studied at the Seminary of Pistoia and was ordained priest in 1831. He was professor of Latin and Greek and rector of the Collegio Cicognini of Prato, where, together with Atto Vannucci and Enrico Bindi, he initiated a series of annotated Latin classics for use in schools, which achieved excellent results. An easy and elegant writer, he contributed to Florentine newspapers and reviews such as L'Alba, Lo Spettatore, and La Rivista, showing himself moderately liberal in politics. In 1848 he was admitted to the Accademia della Crusca and subsequently became its secretary. There he took part in compiling the celebrated dictionary and delivered reports, addresses, and lectures, written in an easy and spontaneous style, free from rhetorical embellishments. He was also a member of the Florentine academies, the Ateneo Italiano and the Colombaria. In his final years he translated Callimachus’ Iuni, the Iliade, and, into Alfierian verse, Ponsard’s pseudoclassical tragedy Lucrezia.