Canfora, Luciano 1942–

PERSONAL: Born June 5, 1942, in Bari, Italy; son of Fabrizio and Rosa (Cifarelli) Canfora; married Renata Roncali, March 28, 1968; children: two. Education: Earned degree in Roman history, 1964. Politics: "New left."

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of Classical Philology, University of Bari, Palazzo Ateneo, Piazza Umberto I, 70121 Bari, Italy; fax: 00-39-080-571-4205. E-mail—l.canfora@lettere.uniba.it.

CAREER: Scuola Normale, Pisa, Italy, specialist in classical philology; worked as assistant professor of ancient history and of Greek literature; University of Bari, Bari, Italy, professor of Greek and Latin philology. Lecturer at other institutions. Consiglio Na-zionale delle Ricerche, member of scientific committee; member of Fondazione Gramsci and Andreas Mestoxidis Foundation (Corfu).

MEMBER: Association pour l'encouragement des etudes grecques (fellow), Society of Classical Tradition (Boston, MA).

AWARDS, HONORS: Golden Medal, President of the Italian Republic, 2000; Golden Honor Cross, Hellenic Republic, 2005.

WRITINGS:

Inventario del manoscritti greci di Demostene, Antenore (Padua, Italy), 1968.

Per la cronologia de Demostene, Adriatica (Bari, Italy), 1968.

Tucidide continuato, Antenore (Padua, Italy), 1970.

Totalitale e selezione nella storiografia classics, Laterza (Bari, Italy), 1972.

Conservazione e perdita dei classici, Antenore (Padua, Italy), 1974.

Storici della revoluzione romana, Dedalo Libri (Bari, Italy), 1974.

Teorie e tecnica della storiografia classica: Luciano, Plutarco, Dionigi, Anonimo su Tucidide, Laterza (Rome, Italy), 1974.

(Editor) Erodoto, Tucidide, Senofonte: Letture critiche, Mursia (Milan, Italy), 1975.

La Germania di Tacito de Engels al nazismo, Liguori (Naples, Italy), 1979.

Intellettuali in Germania: Tra reazione e rivoluzione, De Donato (Bari, Italy), 1979.

Ideologie del classicismo, G. Einaudi (Turin, Italy), 1980.

Analogia e storia: L'uso politico dei paradigmi storici, Il Saggiatore (Milan, Italy), 1982.

Storie di oligarchi, 2nd edition, Sellerio (Palermo, Italy), 1984.

La sentenza: Concetto Marchesi e Giovanni Gentile, Sellerio (Palermo, Italy), 1985.

La biblioteca scomparsa, Sellerio (Palermo, Italy), 1986, translation by Martin Ryle published as The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1989.

Ellenismo, Laterza (Rome, Italy), 1987.

Tucidede: L'oligarca imperfetto, Editori riuniti (Rome, Italy), 1988.

Una societale premoderna: Lavoro morale, scrittura in Grecia, Dedalo (Bari, Italy), 1989.

Togliatti e i dilemmi della politica, Laterza (Rome, Italy), 1989.

Le vie del classicismo, three volumes, Laterza (Rome, Italy), 1989–2004.

(Editor, with Mario Liverani and Carlo Zaccagnini) I trattati nel mondo antico: Forma, ideologia, funzione, L'Erma de Bretschneider (Rome, Italy), 1990.

La crisi dell'Est e il PCI, Dedalo (Bari, Italy), 1990.

Le bibliotheque d'Alexandrie et l'histoire des textes, Center of Documentation, University of Liege (Liege, Belgium), 1992.

Marx vive a Calcutta, Dedalo (Bari, Italy), 1992.

Tucidede e l'impero: La presa di Melo, Laterza (Bari, Italy), 1992.

Vita di Lucrezio, Sellerio (Palermo, Italy), 1993.

Studi di storia della storiografia romana, Edipuglia (Bari, Italy), 1993.

Manifesto della liberta, Sellerio (Palermo, Italy), 1994.

Il viaggio di Aristea, Laterza (Rome, Italy), 1996.

(Editor) Idee di Europa: Attualita e fragilita di un progetto antico, Dedalo (Bari, Italy), 1997.

(With others) Orienti e occidenti: Confronti e corrispondenze tra mondi e culture, Edizioni Fahrenheit 451 (Rome, Italy), 1997.

Le mystere Thucydide: Enquete a partir d'Aristotle, Desjonqueres (Paris, France), 1998.

(With others) Venticinque ecoli dopo l'invenzione della democrazia, Fondazione Paestum (Paestum, Italy), 1998.

La biblioteca del patriarca: Fozio censurato nella Francia di Mazzarino, Salerno (Rome, Italy), 1998.

La lista di Andocide, Sellerio (Palermo, Italy), 1998.

Un ribelle in cerca di liberta: Profilo di Palmiro Togliatti, Sellerio (Palermo, Italy), 1998.

Togliatti e i critici tardi, Teti (Milan, Italy), 1998.

(Editor) Studi sulla tradizione classica per Mariella Cagnetta, Laterza (Rome, Italy), 1999.

(With others) L'Avvocato di Dio: Colloquio sul de providentia di Seneca, Patron Editore (Bologna, Italy), 1999.

Giulio Cesare: Il dittatore democratico, GLF Editori Laterza (Rome, Italy), 1999.

La storiografia greca, B. Mondadori (Milan, Italy), 1999.

(Editor) La rivolta degli schiavi in Sicilia, Sellerio (Palermo, Italy), 1999.

Prima lezione di storia greca, Laterza (Rome, Italy), 2000.

Il Fozio ritrovato: Juan de Mariana e André Schott, Dedalo (Bari, Italy), 2001.

Storia della letteratura greca, Laterza (Rome, Italy), 2001.

Convertire Casaubon, Adelphi (Milan, Italy), 2002.

Il copista come autore, Sellerio (Palermo, Italy), 2002.

Noi e gli antichi, Rizzoli (Milan, Italy), 2002.

Critica della retorica democratica, Laterza (Rome, Italy), 2002.

Storici e storia, N. Aragno (Turin, Italy), 2003.

Democrazia: Storia di un'ideologia, Laterza (Rome, Italy), 2004, translation by Simon Jones published as Democracy in Europe: A History, Blackwell Publishing (Malden, MA), 2006.

Editor of the series "La città antica," Sellerio (Palermo, Italy), "Paradosis," Dedalo (Bari, Italy); and "Ekdosis," Pagina (Bari, Italy). Director of Quaderni di storia, 1975–; coeditor of Historia y Critica, Journal of Classical Traditon, Les Etudes classiques, Anabases, Filosofia dei diritti umani/Philosophy of Human Rights, and Limes.

Several of Canfora's Italian writings have been translated into French, German, and, Spanish.

SIDELIGHTS: Luciano Canfora is an Italian author and editor who specializes in classical literature and culture. He has produced a large number of books in the Italian language. Teorie e tecnica della storiografia classica is a presentation of the pamphlet of Lucian of Samosata about the historiography and Italian translations of classical texts such as Plutarch's On the Malice of Herodotus and On Thucydides by Dionysus of Halicarnassus. In Vita di Lucrezio, Canfora presents his arguments on such historical topics as the identity of the "Karos" referred to in the Epicurean inscription at Oenoanda in southern Turkey. Studi di storia della storiografia romana is a collection of nineteen papers on the classical authors Caesar, Sallust, Nepos, Livy, and Tacitus.

One of Canfora's books that has been translated into English is The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World. The book is, according to Peter Parsons of the Times Literary Supplement, an "elegant confection" about the Library of Alexandria in Greece. The library no longer exists, but for ten centuries it was the most distinguished library in the Greco-Roman world. In The Vanished Library, Canfora recounts the history of the Library at Alexandria and the practices used at the library. Mary Beard, writing for the London Review of Books, called Canfora "an unusually eloquent voice" and said that he has written a "deceptively simple" narrative.

When asked which of his books is his favorite, Canfora told CA that the book he most prefers is "Tucidide continuato (Thucydides continuatus): this book modified the traditional biography of the most important Greek historian, Thucydides."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Cathlic Biblical Quarterly, January, 1993, Robert North, review of I trattati nel mondo antico: Forma, ideologia, funzione, p. 192.

ETC: Review of General Semantics, spring, 1991, William E. Coleman, Jr., review of The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World, p. 102.

Journal of the American Oriental Society, October-December, 1992, Delbert R. Hillers, review of I trattati nel mondo antico, p. 683.

Journal of the History of Ideas, January, 1991, review of The Vanished Library, p. 170.

Library Quarterly, October, 1991, Graham P. Jefcoate, review of The Vanished Library, p. 450.

London Review of Books, February 8, 1990, Mary Beard, review of The Vanished Library, p. 11.

New York Review of Books, June 14 1990, Hugh Lloyd-Jones, review of The Vanished Library, p. 27.

Publishers Weekly, August 10, 1990, Penny Kaganoff, review of The Vanished Library, p. 438.

Times Literary Supplement, March 9, 1990, Peter Parsons, review of The Vanished Library, p. 249; April 15, 1994, Don Fowler, review of Vita di Lucrezio, pp. 5-6; June 6, 1997, David J. Wasserstein, review of Il viaggio di Aristea, p. 36; August 21, 1998, review of La mystere Thucydide: Enquete a partir d'Aristotle, p. 25.

Wilson Library Bulletin, February, 1991, Stephanie Martin, review of The Vanished Library, p. 145.