Italian Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill
Associate Professor of Italian
At UNC since 1973
Ph.D. Columbia U, 1974
M.A. Fordham U, 1965
A.B. Fordham U, 1963
Telephone: 919-962-1028
Email: erao@email.unc.edu
Mailing Address: 125 Dey Hall, CB 3170
Dept of Romance Languages & Literatures
UNC-Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3170
Born in Messina (Italy), I came to the United States in 1956. I received my B.A. in Classics and Philosophy from Fordham University, where I went on to earn an M.A. in Classical Philology. I also hold an M.Phil. in Greek and Latin and a Ph.D. in Italian from Columbia University. Because of my strong background in the Greek and Latin classics, I was naturally attracted to the study of the fifteenth-century Italian Humanists, Petrarch's disciples, who launched an energetic cultural and educational program which brought about the strongest revival yet of classical learning, culminating in the Renaissance.
The most compelling influence on my scholarly formation was my mentor, Professor Paul Oskar Kristeller, who stresses the importance of accurate critical editions of the Humanists’ works as the basis for the study of Humanism and the Renaissance. Accordingly, I have published a critical edition of Bartolomeo Facio’s invectives against Lorenzo Valla and am completing the first complete edition of Facio’s letters. I have recently given to the presses a study of the humanistic invectives written between 1350 and 1452 and am engaged in a long project consisting of a history and anthology of the literature of the Renaissance in Sicily, comprising works in Greek, Latin, and the Tuscan and Sicilian vernaculars.
An Arts and Sciences leave in Fall ’95 has permitted me to launch another project, the study of Epicureanism in 15th-century Italy and the attempt by some Humanists to Christianize the Greek philosopher. My interest in the Renaissance has not precluded the exploration of other periods. I have written on Federico de Roberto and the contemporary poet, Carmelo Aliberti.
At the undergraduate level, I teach courses ranging from Accelerated Italian to Conversation, Civilization, the Modern Novel, and seminars on such authors as Pirandello. At the graduate level I teach courses and seminars on Humanism and Renaissance, Renaissance Theater, Renaissance Chivalric Literature, Italian Dialects, and History of the Italian Language. I am presently preparing a seminar on Mannerist and Baroque Literature.
Italian Studies
CB 3170, Dey Hall
UNC-Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3170
(919) 999-9999
Email us