Family Name: Mazzarella Farao
First Name: Francesco
Birth Date: 1745
Death Date: 1820
Main places of activity:
Place
Naples
Personal info:
Career

Mazzarella Farao was a locally renowned erudite, a philologist and a ancient Greek scholar.

His main occupation was that of Regius Professor of literature and Greek antiquities at the university of Naples.

In the wake of the excavations leading to the discovery of the Hercolaneum villas covered by the Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD, in 1788 he was comissioned by the king of Naples to study the papyri recovered in Portici.

Mazzarella Farao also edited the works of other authors: in 1791 he republished the Discorsi sulla Lucania (1756) by his uncle Giuseppe Antonini, adding his own commentaries and notes.

His interest in the Neapolitan dialect brought him to compose Bellezzetuddene de la lengua napoletana, now lost, and to edit and contribute to Ferdinando Galiani's posthumous Vocabolario delle parole del dialetto napoletano (1789).

Benedetto Croce said to him facetiously "ciascuno ha i suoi passatempi, e, il tuo, erano le cattive etimologie" (Un paradiso abitato da diavoli, 89)

Mazzarella Farao was also a member of the Arcadia Academy with the name Pleuronio Misio, and employed different other pseudonyms as a writer, such as Dionisio and Critodemio Gortinio.
Translations Other Works

translations activities

Mazzarella Farao's activity as a translator mainly regarded ancient Greek and Latin classics for didactical purposes, although particularly noteworthy are his translations of Homer and Virgil in the Neapolitan dialect.

Mazzarella Farao also produced Italian versions of more contemporary English and French texts, in part picking up the previous work of his uncle Annibale Antonini: he retranslated Paolo Rolli's Remarks from the original English and republished the anonymous translation of Fontenelle's Entretiens made in Paris in 1748.


secondary bibliography references

Umberto La Torraca, 'L'insegnamento del greco e le grammatiche pubblicate a Napoli nel Settecento (seconda parte)', Vichiana, IX, n°1 (2007), 1-21.

Translations

  • Rationes decem quibus fretus certamen adversariis obtulit in causa fidei

  • Translation Title: Della verità della cristiana cattolica religione prove dieci
  • Original Author: Edmund Campion
  • Original title: Rationes decem quibus fretus certamen adversariis obtulit in causa fidei
  • Publ. Year From: 1583 to:
  • lang: Latin
  • Note:

    Campion's work was originally written in 1581.
  • Title: Campian Englished. Or A translation of the Ten reasons in which Edmund Campian (of the Societie of Iesus) priest, insisted in his challenge, to the Vniuersities of Oxford and Cambridge Made by a priest of the Catholike and Roman Church
  • Pub. Place: Rouen?
  • Pub. Year: 1631
  • Lang: English
  • Translation: Della verità della cristiana cattolica religione prove dieci
  • Publisher: Vincenzo Orsini
  • Pub. Place: Naples
  • Pub. Date: 1774
  • Lang: Italian
  • Note:

    Mazzarella Farao translated using an English translation of the original Latin text as a source.

  • Τα καθ' Ηρώ και Λέανδρον

  • Translation Title: Musaiu tu grammatiku ta kath'Hērō kai Leandron. Di Museo il grammatico gli amorosi avvenimente tra Ero e Leandro tradotti dal Greco originale in Latino, ed in versi Italiani
  • Original Author: Μουσαίος ο Γραμματικός
  • Original title: Τα καθ' Ηρώ και Λέανδρον
  • Publ. Year From: 0599 to:
  • lang: Ancient Greek
  • Translation: Musaiu tu grammatiku ta kath'Hērō kai Leandron. Di Museo il grammatico gli amorosi avvenimente tra Ero e Leandro tradotti dal Greco originale in Latino, ed in versi Italiani
  • Publisher: Pietro Perger
  • Pub. Place: Naples
  • Pub. Date: 1786
  • Lang: Latin and Italian

  • Βατραχομυομαχία

  • Translation Title: La batracommiomachia (a lo ddi de la ggente) d'Ommero, aliasse La guerra ntra le rranonchie e li surece sportata 'n lengua napoletana
  • Original Author: Όμηρος
  • Original title: Βατραχομυομαχία
  • Publ. Year From: 0299 to:
  • lang: Ancient Greek
  • Translation: La batracommiomachia (a lo ddi de la ggente) d'Ommero, aliasse La guerra ntra le rranonchie e li surece sportata 'n lengua napoletana
  • Publisher: Giuseppe Maria Porcelli librajo, e stampatore della r. Accad. militare
  • Pub. Place: Naples
  • Pub. Date: 1788
  • Lang: Neapolitan dialect

  • Bucolica sive Eclogae X quas triennio perfecit. Sunt carmina pastoralia, similia carminibus Theocriti

  • Translation Title: La Bocoleca de P. Vergilejo Marone tradotta 'n lengua napoletana
  • Original Author: Publius Vergilius Maro
  • Original title: Bucolica sive Eclogae X quas triennio perfecit. Sunt carmina pastoralia, similia carminibus Theocriti
  • Publ. Year From: 0038 to: 0041
  • lang: Latin
  • Translation: La Bocoleca de P. Vergilejo Marone tradotta 'n lengua napoletana
  • Publisher: Peppo Maria Porciello libraro e stampatore de la R. Acc. Mil.
  • Pub. Place: Naples
  • Pub. Date: 1789
  • Lang: Neapolitan dialect

  • Remarks upon M. Voltaire's Essay on the epick poetry of the European nations

  • Translation Title: Disamina del parere di m.r de Voltaire sulla poesia epica. Opera del sig. Paolo Rolli tradotta dall'inglese in italiano da Pleuronio Misio pastore arcade
  • Original Author: Paolo Rolli
  • Original title: Remarks upon M. Voltaire's Essay on the epick poetry of the European nations
  • Publ. Year From: 1727 to:
  • lang: English
  • Translation: Disamina del parere di m.r de Voltaire sulla poesia epica. Opera del sig. Paolo Rolli tradotta dall'inglese in italiano da Pleuronio Misio pastore arcade
  • Publisher: il Porsile
  • Pub. Place: Naples
  • Pub. Date: 1778
  • Lang: Italian

  • Fragments

  • Translation Title: Sapphous tēs Lesbias Melē. Sapphus Lesbiae Carmina graec. latin. ital.
  • Original Author: Sappho
  • Original title: Fragments
  • lang: Ancient Greek
  • Translation: Sapphous tēs Lesbias Melē. Sapphus Lesbiae Carmina graec. latin. ital.
  • Pub. Place: Naples
  • Pub. Date: 1802
  • Lang: Italian, Latin

  • Odes and poems

  • Translation Title: Anacreontis Teii Odae graec. latin. ital.
  • Original Author: Anacreon
  • Original title: Odes and poems
  • lang: Ancient Greek
  • Translation: Anacreontis Teii Odae graec. latin. ital.
  • Pub. Place: Naples
  • Pub. Date: 1802
  • Lang: Latin

  • Satyrae

  • Translation Title: Auli Persi Flacci satyrae sex: Le sei satirae di Aulo Persio Flacco tradotte in Italiano da Dionisio Mazzarella Farao
  • Original Author: Aulus Persius Flaccus
  • Original title: Satyrae
  • lang: Latin
  • Translation: Auli Persi Flacci satyrae sex: Le sei satirae di Aulo Persio Flacco tradotte in Italiano da Dionisio Mazzarella Farao
  • Publisher: Raffaele Miranda
  • Pub. Place: Naples
  • Pub. Date: 1818
  • Lang: Latin, Italian

  • De Viris Illustribus Romae

  • Translation Title: Cornelio Nipote od anzi Aurelio Vittore Sulle vite degli Uomini illustri
  • Original Author: Sextus Aurelius Victor
  • Original title: De Viris Illustribus Romae
  • lang: Latin
  • Translation: Cornelio Nipote od anzi Aurelio Vittore Sulle vite degli Uomini illustri
  • Publisher: Raffaele Miranda
  • Pub. Place: Naples
  • Pub. Date: 1818
  • Lang: Italian, Latin
calamaio

By:

  • Giovanni Lista