BARBI, MICHELE. - Philologist and man of letters, born at Sambuca pistoiese in 1867, died at Firenze in 1941. Formerly a librarian in Firenze, in 1906 he became lecturer in Italian literature at the University of Messina, and subsequently at the faculty of education in Firenze.
An eminent Dante scholar, he was director of the Bullettino della Società dantesca and of the Studi danteschi; critical editor of the Vita nuova and the Canzoniere. He was the author of a concise and precise monograph on Dante and of a two-volume collection, Problemi di critica dantesca. His writings, Poesia popolare italiana, Studi e proposte, e La Nuova filologia e l'edizione dei nostri scrittori da Dante al Manzoni, further attest his great worth as a philologist. Together with F. Ghisalberti, he edited the national edition of Manzoni’s Opere. In his will he left all his books to the Scuola normale superiore of Pisa, «possibly in order to establish a school of Italian philology with practical exercises».