Interdepartmental and Interuniversity Centre of Classical Studies “N. Marinone”

The Centre has been active for years at DISUM and was transformed in 2014 into an inter-university and inter-departmental Centre, in collaboration with the Department of Humanities of the University of Turin.

The Centre was set up to carry out research activities in the field of classical literature and languages, drawing inspiration from the work carried out for many years by Nino Marinone (1918-1999). Marinone, an illustrious Vercelli resident (nominated 'Vercelli Figure of the Year' in 1997), lived in Vercelli all his life, even when, after many years of teaching Latin and Greek in the local classical high school and then principal of the scientific high school, he became a full professor in 1971 of History of the Latin language at the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy of the University of Turin; he taught here until his retirement in 1993, later becaming professor emeritus. A member of the Academy of Sciences of Turin, Marinone was specifically a pioneer in the application of modern IT tools to classical languages and literatures, on which he worked in collaboration with the Institute of Computational Linguistics of the CNR of Pisa.

In the name of Marinone, the Centre has been involved for years (with the support of the Cassa di Risparmio di Vercelli Foundation) in the dissemination of knowledge on classical Greek and Roman antiquity, annually organising a series of conferences with the Italian Association of Classical Culture (branch of Vercelli) which is housed in the Centre and chaired by a former student of Nino Marinone, prof. Maria Pia Saviolo Magrassi. Videos of conferences of the last few years are available on the dedicated website Series of conferences on classical culture.

Marinone's teaching is the focus of the research project "Digital Library of Late Latin Texts" (acronym DigilibLT), funded by the Piedmont Regional Authority and with the support of the Cassa di Risparmio di Vercelli Foundation, which has created a website containing the vulgar Latin works of the late ancient period (II-VI century). The project, which is headed by Raffaella Tabacco who co-directs it with Maurizio Lana, also involves two professors from the Department of Humanities of the University of Turin (Ermanno Malaspina and Andrea Balbo). 

Representative of the Centre

• prof. Maurizio Lana

Administrative of the Centre located at DISUM.