- Ernesto de Martino
-
Ernesto de Martino (1 December 1908 – 9 May 1965) was an Italian philosopher and anthropologist and historian of religions. He studied with Benedetto Croce and Adolfo Omodeo, and did field research with Diego Carpitella into the funeral rituals of Lucania and the tarantella.
Ernesto de Martino (1908–1965) was born in Naples, Italy, where he studied under Adolfo Omodeo, graduating with a degree in philosophy in 1932. His degree thesis, subsequently published, dealt with the historical and philological problem of the Eleusinian Gephyrismi (ritual injuries addressed to the goddess) and provides an important methodological introduction to the concept of religion. Clearly influenced by reading Das Heilige by Rudolf Otto, de Martino preferred to emphasize the choleric nature of the believer, overturning the German scholar's thesis and making it capable of being applied to relations with gods in polytheistic religions and spirits in animist religions. Attracted by the ideological stance of the regime, for several years de Martino worked on an essay interpreting Fascism as a historically convenient form of civil religion. However, the attempt was insubstantial and the work, still unpublished, was gradually rejected by the author. At this time, which we now call the "Neapolitan" period, lasting until 1935, de Martino fell under the spell of the personality and work of an archaeologist who was particularly open-minded concerning the ancient history of religions and who was disliked by both the regime and its intellectual opponents: Vittorio Macchioro, known for his Orphic interpretation of the frescoes in the Villa of Mysteries in Pompeii and advocate of a theory of religion understood essentially as experience.[1]
He taught history at Cagliari's University from 1959 to his death.
Bibliography
- 1958, Morte e pianto rituale. Dal lamento funebre antico al pianto di Maria.
- 1959, Sud e Magia (on the magic in southern Italian societies)
- 1961, La terra del rimorso
- 1972, Primitive Magic: The Psychic powers of Shamans and Sorcerers
- 2002a (1962). Furore Simbolo Valore, Milano: Feltrinelli.
- 2002b (1977). La fine del mondo. Contributo all’analisi delle apocalissi culturali, Torino: Einaudi.
- 2005. The Land of Remorse: A Study of Southern Italian Tarantism (translated by D.L. Zinn with an introduction of V. Crapanzano), London: Free Association Books.
References
Ferrari, Fabrizio M. (2011, forthcoming). Ernesto de Martino on Religion. The Crisis and the Presence. London and Oakville: Equinox.
Viareggio Prize-winning authors Anselmo Bucci – Lorenzo Viani (1930) · Corrado Tumiati (1931) · Antonio Foschini (1932) · Achille Campanile (1933) · Raffaele Calzini (1934) · Mario Massa – Stefano Pirandello (1935) · Riccardo Bacchelli (1936) · Guelfo Civinini (1937) · Vittorio Giovanni Rossi – Enrico Pea (1938) · Arnaldo Frateili – Orio Vergani – Maria Bellonci (1939) · Silvio Micheli – Umberto Saba (1946) · Antonio Gramsci (1947) · Aldo Palazzeschi – Elsa Morante – Sibilla Aleramo (1948) · Arturo Carlo Jemolo – Renata Viganò (1949) – Francesco Jovine – Carlo Bernari (1950) · Domenico Rea (1951) · Tommaso Fiore (1952) · Carlo Emilio Gadda (1953) · Rocco Scotellaro (1954) · Vasco Pratolini (1955) · Carlo Levi – Gianna Manzini (1956) · Italo Calvino – Pier Paolo Pasolini (1957) · Ernesto De Martino (1958) · Marino Moretti (1959) · Giovanni Battista Angioletti (1960) · Alberto Moravia (1961) · Giorgio Bassani (1962) · Antonio Delfini – Sergio Solmi (1963) · Giuseppe Berto (1964) · Goffredo Parise (1965) · Ottiero Ottieri – Alfonso Gatto (1966) · Raffaello Brignetti (1967) · Libero Bigiaretti (1968) · Fulvio Tomizza (1969) · Nello Saito (1970) · Ugo Attardi (1971) · Romano Bilenchi (1972) · Achille Campanile (1973) · Clotilde Marghieri (1974) · Paolo Volponi (1975) · Mario Tobino – Dario Bellezza – Sergio Solmi (1976) · Davide Lajolo (1977) · Antonio Altomonte – Mario Luzi (1978) · Giorgio Manganelli (1979) · Stefano Terra (1980) · Enzo Siciliano (1981) · Primo Levi (1982) · Giuliana Morandini (1983) · Gina Lagorio (1984) · Manlio Cancogni (1985) · Marisa Volpi (1986) · Mario Spinella (1987) · Rosetta Loy (1988) · Salvatore Mannuzzu (1989) · Luisa Adorno – Cesare Viviani – Maurizio Calvesi (1990) · Antonio Debenedetti (1991) · Luigi Malerba (1992) · Alessandro Baricco (1993) · Antonio Tabucchi (1994) · Maurizio Maggiani (1995) · Ermanno Rea – Alda Merini (1996) · Claudio Piersanti – Franca Grisone – Corrado Stajano (1997) · Giorgio Pressburger – Michele Sovente – Carlo Ginzburg (1998) · Ernesto Franco (1999) · Giorgio van Straten – Sandro Veronesi (2000) · Niccolò Ammaniti – Michele Ranchetti – Giorgio Pestelli (2001) · Jaeggy Fleur – Jolanda Insana – Alfonso Berardinelli (2002) · Giuseppe Montesano (2003) · Edoardo Albinati – Andrea Tagliapietra – Livia Livi (2004) · Raffaele La Capria – Alberto Arbasino – Milo de Angelis (2005) · Gianni Celati – Giovanni Agosti – Giuseppe Conte – Roberto Saviano (2006) · Filippo Tuena – Paolo Mauri – Silvia Bre – Simona Baldanzi – Paolo Colagrande – Paolo Fallai (2007) · Francesca Sanvitale – Miguel Gotor – Eugenio De Signoribus (2008)Categories:- 1908 births
- 1965 deaths
- Italian academics
- Viareggio Prize winners
- Italian academic biography stubs
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
