Il background glottologico e orientalistico di un latinista dell’Accademia scientifico-letteraria: note sull’opera di Carlo Giussani

This paper analyses the figure and the work of the XIX century scholar Carlo Giussani, focusing on his earlier formation as a linguist and orientalist. Although he later became a Latin scholar (he is mostly known for his comment on Lucrece’s De rerum natura), he started his studies at the Accademia Scientifico-Letteraria of Milan under the supervision of G. I. Ascoli, who addressed him to the study of the Indo-Iranian languages. The paper outlines Giussani’s linguistic thought taking into account his first works, professedly devoted to Indo-Iranian topics, as well as other traces of his interest in linguistic matters, which are found in later works. The aim of the paper is to highlight the relevant role played by Giussani’s formation as a linguist throughout his entire scholarly career.