Lecturer in charge: Prof. Guido Borghi

Second semester. Beginning Friday 10 April 2026 h. 17-19 and the following Fridays h. 16.30-19.30 until 29 May (seven meetings for a total of 20 hours).

Prerequisites: an examination in Glottology; passive competence in ancient Greek, Latin and English or German.

Locative place names are a kind of short texts, normally very informative from the historical and topographical point of view, but often - especially if ancient - not interpretable with the usual competence in modern or classical languages. The teaching of Toponomastic Prehistory and Protohistory proposes the acquisition of the glottological techniques of reconstructive engineering through which, as a rule, every toponym becomes transparent with regard to its original form and motivation (precisely prehistoric or protohistoric) even in the not rare case in which the bibliography on the subject is scarce or obsolete or even non-existent.

The origin of the main European ethnonyms (names of peoples) and hydronyms (names of rivers) and an overview of ancient Celtic onomastics are the subject of the workshop, the etymological analysis of Palaeoligurian names (including Genova) contained in the Polcevera Table (Sĕntĕntĭă Mĭnūcĭōrŭm, CIL V, 7749 = I2, 584) of 117 BC.C. or more recent documentation (from both the maritime and the Po Valley), onomastic clues on the languages of the Veneti, the Raeti and the Man of Similaun, a case of Etruscan/Italic limnonym (lake name) (Trasimeno), the interpretation of Rōmă and Bȳzắntĭŏn, the prehistoric toponymic stratification of Sardinia, Sicily, Apulia and Dalmatia, the traces of a pre-Phoenician Indo-European language of Carthage, the question of Plato's Atlantis, some hydronyms and ethnonyms in Herodotus's lógos scythics, the implications of the Homeric attestation of the Phrygians, the question of the astionym Troia and its alleged Hittite equivalents, the Minoan toponyms attested in Linear A and Egyptian, the Greek and Eblaitic names of Egypt, the problem of the pre-Israelite peoples of Palestine.

held by: Prof.ssa Rosa Ronzitti

The Sanskrit Language Laboratory, activated by the CdS in Humanities and recognised by the CdS magistral in Philology and Sciences of Antiquity, has the following programme:

The laboratory, through the presentation of texts and images, aims to provide the fundamental tools for understanding the ancient Indian language (Vedic and Sanskrit) and its alphabet (Devanāgari). A particular aim is to show students how Greek, Latin, Germanic languages and Slavic languages are related to the North Indian language varieties. The devanāgari script (देवनागरी,) which is the basis of all modern scripts of the Indian Union and Nepal, Bangla Desh, Śrī Laṅkā.

The workshop will take place in the second semester.

Master's degree students, in order to take advantage of the workshop for 3 CFU, will have to integrate the activities with the following bibliography:

Saverio Sani, Grammatica Sanscrita, Serra, Pisa - Roma 2012 (selected topics)

Giuliano Boccali, Stefano Piano, Saverio Sani, Le letterature dell'India, UTET, Torino 2004, Chapter Two (Epica).

The final test is the transcription of a text in the Devanagaric alphabet. Master students will also answer some questions on the Indian epic.

Students may apply for recognition of 1 cfu for attending an advanced lectureship in translation from classical languages.

Information here: https://corsi.unige.it/corsi/11866/studenti-lettorati

Thursday 26 March 2026 (Classroom to be determined):
- 9.00-11.00             Borja Diaz Ariño (Universidad de Zaragoza): El bronce de Novallas y la
epigrafia celtibérica en alfabeto latino.
- 11.00-13.00            Salvador Ordóñez Agulla - Sergio Garcia-Dils (Universidad de Sevilla) :
Colonia Augusta Firma - Astigi: una ciudad de la Baetica y su epigrafia.

For the recognition of 1 cfu, students will also have to submit a report agreed with Prof. Elena Cimarosti

25 February 2026, 3pm, Balbi 2 - Classroom 4
DOMENICO LOSAPPIO (University of Genoa) L' Ars dictaminis: alcune questioni preliminari
19 March 2026, 3pm, Balbi 2 - Classroom 7
MARCO PETOLETTI (University of the Sacred Heart, Milan) Real letters and fictitious letters in a collection
thirteenth-century Lombardy of exempla epistolarum
25 March 2026, 11am, Balbi 2 - Classroom 2
ELISABETTA BARTOLI (University of Siena) Rhetoric declined in the feminine as they give it back to us
letters. A few case studies
8 April 2026, 3pm, Balbi 2 - Classroom 4
BENOÎT GRÉVIN (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre de Recherches Historiques,
Paris) Thinking about the theory and practice of the'ars dictaminis in thirteenth-century Italy (1220-1330)
15 April 2026, 3pm, Balbi 2 - Classroom 4
ANTONIO MONTEFUSCO (Université de Lorraine) Dante's letters as an editorial case: a history
editions
April 22, 2026, 3pm, Balbi 2 - Classroom 6
DONATELLA MANZOLI (Sapienza, University of Rome) Women's Letters from Merovingian Gaul
PAOLO GARBINI (Sapienza, University of Rome) Why read the Boncompagnus
April 24, 2026, 3pm, Balbi 2 - Classroom 5
FULVIO DELLE DONNE (University of Naples "Federico II") Papal and Imperial Epistolary Collections of the
XIII century in the perspective of the dictaminal turn: literary texts or diplomatic sources?

1 CFU will be awarded to those who attend the lectures (signatures will be taken at the beginning and at the end of each lecture) and deliver a short written report (max 5000 characters including spaces) in which one of the issues raised during the seminar must be illustrated. The report will be handed over to Professors Losappio and Fossati for correction. In the event of a positive assessment, a certificate will be issued to be handed over to the other credits committee of the Arts degree course.

On 15 and 16 December 2025, the conference Pre-humanism and the theatre: texts, tradition, fortune.

Booklet with programme.

For the achievement of 1 cfu students will also be required to submit a short written report (max. 5,000 characters, to be sent to clara.fossati@unige.it and domenico.losappio@unige.it) 

Programme available here: https://laughtracks.prin.unige.it/node/655

For the purposes of recognising 1 cfu, students must not only attend the conference proceedings but also present a paper agreed with Prof. Serena Perrone

-October 1, 10.30-12 am "The Sisters of Alcesti", presentation of the volume The Name and the Genre. The satirical drama and the 'fourth drama' in Greek theatre, Venice 2024, by Laura Carrara (UniPi) in dialogue with Pia Carolla and Serena Perrone, Aula magna, Balbi 2 and on Zoom

- 13 November 13:15-14:45 Linda Aiazzi (UniPi), "Turning prose into poetry: the carme on Panteleemone, a medical saint", Lecture Hall 3, Balbi 2, and on Zoom

- 1 December 2025 15.30-17.00 "When History Becomes Poetry: Konstantinos Kavafis and Hellenism", discussed by Francesca Gazzano, Professor of Greek History (DIRAAS), and Amalia Kolonia, Professor of Neogreek (DIRAAS). Edited by Pia Carolla, lecture room 3 - via Balbi 2 and on Zoom UniGe.

For the award of 1 cfu Other activities students must have attended at least two of the three meetings and presented a paper on one of them of their choice to Prof. Carolla.

The course of study recognises a maximum of 1cfu for participation in the following courses of Citizenship Training

The programmes for these courses are available on the platform aula-web at the following link Training courses for digital citizenship RAISE | UniGe | University of Genoa

The Summer School of Indo-European will take place in Berlin from 25 to 29 August 2025

Programme.
 

The international conference "Μουσέων ἐν θεάτρῳ. Perspectives on Greek Drama from Ancient Scholarship" will take place on 6-7 May in the Aula Magna.

For the purposes of obtaining 1 cfu students will also be required to give a paper.

the PROJECT
The text annotation carried out by PARSEME is part of the UniDive Cost Action (Working
group 1), a European project dedicated to the recording of multi-word expressions in
modern languages and some ancient languages (Greek, Latin, Ancient Egyptian), which have recently been
implemented. The data thus produced are published regularly and are open-access.
The launch of the first database in ancient Greek is planned by the end of 2024.

FORMATION AND GROUP MEETINGS (15 HOURS)
Participation in the project includes an initial training phase. A course in English is
available free of charge on the Udemy platform and the Italian contact person for the project will make herself
available for any clarification.
In addition, the annotation guidelines, are available in free access: they contain
diagrams of decision-making with exclusive answers (yes/no), which facilitate the choice of the correct classification
of the syntagma or, possibly, its exclusion from the category of multi-word expressions.
The Ancient Greek working group schedules a series of monthly meetings, on the zoom platform,
for the exchange of ideas and the discussion of possible problems. Finally, the annotators are given access
to a shared document, in which they can ask questions about the annotation of specific expressions.

ANNOUNCATION (60 HOURS)
On completion of the training, the annotators will be given the texts and a username to
access the FLAT (Folia Linguistica Annotation Tool) platform.
They will have to read the text on the platform, selecting syntactic structures belonging
to the mentioned categories. In order to annotate a syntagma, once its correct classification has been established
following the procedures learnt during the training, simply click on the lexemes that
constitute it and enter the correct markup in the interface that will open automatically.
The annotation will first allow students to read in full some texts of classical prose
actics. To date, texts by Lysias, Xenophon (Anabasis) and Plato (Republic) have been annotated,
but, for the next publication, the corpus will be extended to other Attic orators, Thucydides and Aristotle.
Participation in the project will also bring the students into contact with the rudiments of the
mechanisms underlying the creation of large digital databases for comparative linguistic study, in
a system that, while taking into account the distinctiveness of the classical languages, places them in direct dialogue
with many modern languages (the project includes more than 30 language varieties, to which
are added 10 dialects), highlighting elements of continuity and discontinuity.
From a more strictly philological point of view, such an annotated corpus facilitates the search for
parallel steps and the study of certain syntactic structures. In the long term, it also allows
the updating of dictionaries and grammar manuals.
The annotation work can be done entirely remotely, from any device (PC,
laptop, tablet) and within a flexible time frame (up to 6 months). The length of the texts will be determined
bearing in mind the reading of a text portion of approx. 650 words per hour. 60 hours correspond therefore to the annotation of texts of about 40000 words (a book of Plato's Republic has, for example,
about 9000 words).

The international Language leader of the project is Dr. Victoria Beatrix Fendel, University of Oxford (victoria.fendel@classics.ox.ac.uk)

Students interested in participating can contact the Italian contact person: Dr. Elena Squeri, Sapienza - University of Rome (elena.squeri@uniroma1.it)