The school community of the Liceo Classico “Pietro Giannone” in Benevento expresses deep condolences and closeness to the family for the passing of Prof. Marco Buonocore. He was one of the most illustrious Italian scholars of ancient history and Latin epigraphy. Born in Rome in 1954, after having been a professor of Latin and Greek in classical high schools, from 1981 to 2019 he was scriptor Latinus of the Vatican Apostolic Library (since 2003 also Director of the Archives Section). Since 1988 he has been commissioned by the Berlin and Brandenburg Academy of Sciences to draw up the Supplement to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, volume IX, relating to the Augustan royal IV (central Italy) expected in five volumes (the first three volumes have been released).
He was a contract professor at the “G. D’Annunzio” of Chieti, the III University of Rome and held a cycle of seminars on legal epigraphy at the “Advanced Training Course in Roman Law” at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. From 2011 to 2021 he was President of the Pontifical Roman Academy of Archaeology. He was a member of the Executive and Scientific Council of the Deputation of Homeland History in the Abruzzi and an honorary, active and corresponding member of numerous Italian and foreign academies as well as a member of the international scientific committee of the journals Minima epigraphica et papyrologica, Polygraphia, Codex.
His scientific works, over 500 articles and monographs, published in Italian and foreign offices, mainly follow four lines of research: that of classical antiquities with specific regard to Latin epigraphy and the history of the municipal realities of central-southern Roman Italy ; that of the manuscript tradition of classical Latin authors and their reception in the medieval and humanistic fields; that of the establishment of archives and their impact on the social and economic history of modern and contemporary Italy; that of the history of Italian culture of the nineteenth century with specific regard to the relationship between Italy and Germany and the “Italian” scientific heritage of Theodor Mommsen, on which, in addition to other studies, he published the monumental work in two volumes Letters of Theodor Mommsen to Italians, in 2017.
The Professor’s great availability was also manifested in his desire to promote Benevento studies as early as 2009, when he participated in the first epigraphic conference of our city with a report entitled Theodor Mommsen and Benevento. The collaboration with local scholars has continued since then, contributing to increasing knowledge of our historical and cultural heritage. Last year he honored our school with a valuable article of his, which resumed the study on the relationship between Mommsen and Benevento, collaborating with it in the annual magazine Ingenious Bees, produced by the Liceo. Although it was a popular publication, he immediately agreed to participate and, with his meticulous work, raised the quality of our magazine. For this year, with Prof. Buonocore, the Liceo “Giannone” was planning an ambitious project, that of publishing, as a supplement to number 2023 of the magazine Api ingenious, a monograph of his with the study of the epigraphic code of Mariangelo Accursio, which reports 97 Benevento inscriptions transcribed by the humanist in the 16th century.
Prof. Buonocore, in his great professionalism, had already sent a draft to the editor of the magazine, Paola Caruso, and the timing and methods of publication were being studied, when the terrible news of the loss was learned, which took place on December 24 last following the complications caused by the covid. We will gratefully keep the memory of the noble and generous figure of Marco Buonocore.
The Giannone High School in Benevento commemorates the scholar Marco Buonocore