UBALDI, PAOLO. - Born in Parma on 30 Aug. 1872, died in Milan on 22 July 1934. Orphaned and taken in at the age of ten by Fr. Bosco (see GIOVANNI BOSCO), he was ordained priest in 1895. From 1909 he taught Greek literature first in Turin and then in Catania, and from 1924 Christian Greek-Latin literature at the Catholic University in Milan. From 1932 he taught patrology at the major diocesan seminary in Venegono.
He had indeed devoted himself to two quite distinct fields of study: the classical and the Christian. In the former, he was drawn to the great authors: Homer, Pindar, and above all Aeschylus, for whom he produced a reliable text and penetrating exegesis. In the latter, he was a true pioneer in Italy. He began with Chrysostom and Palladius, leaving two finished works, one a historical reconstruction, the other a literary and linguistic evaluation. Later he studied the Greek character of St Mark; still later the Acts of the Martyrs and the 2nd-century apologists, in which his finest work is that on Athenagoras. He founded and directed the Dalskaléion (see), with the aim of rehabilitating ancient Christian literature as an autonomous discipline and placing Italy on a par with other nations in this field. To him we owe the inclusion of readings from ancient Christian writers in the curricula of secondary schools, and today the universities of Turin, Catania, and the Catholic University of Milan have chairs of ancient Christian literature. In Catania in 1947, at the initiative of devoted pupils, the Nuovo Didascalieion was established with a broader programme of work, together with a Centre for the Study of Ancient Christianity.