Giorgio Petrocchi (1921-1989), Tiburtine, Dante scholar, philologist and literary critic.
He was born in Tivoli on August 13, 1921. He was a distinguished Dante scholar, philologist and literary critic. After graduating in Law from La Sapienza University in Rome, he moved to Messina, where he taught Italian Literature. Returning to Rome in 1961, he continued in university teaching and became a member of the Accademia dei Lincei and the Accademia della Crusca. From 1971 he was director of the “Maria SS. Assunta” Institute of Magisterium in Rome and contributed to its transformation into the “Free University Maria SS. Assunta” (LUMSA).
A strong believer, he delved into some authors he considered very close in Christian spirituality and faith, such as Dante Alighieri and Alessandro Manzoni.
A surveyor of the entire Italian literary heritage, from the thirteenth to the twentieth century, he devoted most of his studies to Dante’s work. As a philologist, he edited many critical editions; standing out above them all for its exceptional commitment to work and approach is the critical edition of the Divine Comedy, which was produced on the basis of the manuscript tradition predating Giovanni Boccaccio.
He was among the founders of Roma Tre University, where the Humanities Area Library in the Faculty of Humanities was dedicated to him.
In the late 1980s, he collaborated in RAI on a full television reading of “The Divine Comedy,” which was entrusted to some great actors, including Giorgio Albertazzi. Their interpretations were preceded by commentary on the individual cantos, entrusted to distinguished Dante scholars, including, indeed, Giorgio Petrocchi.
Giorgio Petrocchi’s last message, which appears almost a spiritual testament, is on the value of memory: “The external occasions,” Petrocchi writes, “are the least important and what counts is the precious good that … we have of always living next to our memory. It settles at the bottom of the spirit. And if oblivion has a veil, it is transparent … indeed there is no veil of oblivion. There is a silence that touches the spoken words but with it unceasingly dialogues memory. Bitter, bitter, disturbing … it is never silent. It watchfully assists our acts, gives invisible nourishment.”
He died suddenly in Rome on February 7, 1989.
Giuseppe Petrocchi (Tivoli, 1886 – Rome, 1959), father of Giorgio, was a historian of classical antiquity and director general of higher education.
Massimo Petrocchi (Tivoli 1918 – Rome 1991), brother of Giorgio, was a historian and university professor of modern history.
[In October 2019, on the 30th anniversary of his passing, Tivoli dedicated a Street to him].
