Dr Ugo Mondini

I am a philologist and a literary scholar. My research focuses on Ancient and Medieval Greek literature; technical sources, such as grammatical, metrical, and rhetorical treatises; textual criticism. More broadly, I am interested in how Greek language was taught and used in different contexts as well as in when, why, and how literature was composed in the premodern world.

My British Academy project will result in a multidisciplinary reconsideration of eleventh-century schedography, a method of teaching Greek grammar that significantly impacted text production in Greek for more than five centuries.

I have studied Greek poetry from the Hellenistic period to the Renaissance with the aim of comprehending the forms, the contents, and the status of poetry throughout space and time. In doing so, I have worked on individual poets (from Callimachus to Theodoros Gaza) and works (Ioannes Mauropous’ poetry book; Tzetzes’ Little and Big Iliad, Manuel Philes’ Metaphrasis of the Psalms).

Here in Oxford, I am the Principal Investigator of the TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World a platform to discuss premodern poetry from a global perspective.

Greek Language & Literature – Byzantium – Poetry – Education

2023-2024

• Byzantine Literature Lectures
• Byzantine Text Seminars
• Modern Greek (Digenis Akritis, Late Medieval and Early Modern Romances, Dimotika, Erotokritos)
• Tutorials at Exeter College (Classics), St Peter’s College, and St Anne’s College (Modern Greek)

Full Publications:

Selected Publications:

“L’uso di versi olospondaici nel dodecasillabo prosodico bizantino”, Rivista di Cultura Classica e Medievale 65.2 (2023): 513–550.

“John of all trades. The Μικρομεγάλη Ἰλιάς and Tzetzes’ ‘didactic’ programme”, in E.E. Prodi (ed.), Τζετζικαὶ ἔρευναι, Eikasmos – Studi Online 4 (Bologna:  Pàtron editore, 2022): 237–259.

“La grandiosa ira di Achille in miniatura. Tensioni tra grande e piccolo nella Μικρομεγάλη Ἰλιάς di Giovanni Tzetze”, in P. Piacentini et alii (eds.), (S)proporzioni. Scala, taglia e dimensione tra visuale e testuale (Milano: Ledizioni, 2022): 119–134.

P. Piacentini, G. Colzani, M. La Rosa, U. Mondini, I. Sozzi (eds.), (S)proporzioni. Scala, taglia e dimensione tra visuale e testuale, Consonanze 27 (Milano: Ledizioni, 2022).

“L’epigramma di Antipatro per Erinna (Ep. 58 HE = T8 Neri = AP 7.713)”, Aevum Antiquum N.S. 21 (2021 [2022]): 295–308.

“Composing the Μικρομεγάλη Ἰλιάς. Macro- and microstructure of a Byzantine Homeric poem”, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 114.1 (2021): 325–354.

“Il silenzio di Lazzaro nel Carm. 80 di Cristoforo Mitileneo”, Bisanzio e l’Occidente 3 (2021): 11–18 [repr. in C. Castelli – M. Della Valle – A. Torno Ginnasi (eds.), Cultura letteraria e artistica tra Bisanzio e l’Occidente, Hendiadys. Momenti e passaggi della tradizione antica 1 (Milano: Ledizioni, 2021): 53–63].

“Un’incoronazione imperiale nel monastero di Sostenio (Giovanni Mauropode, Carm. 80)”, Incontri Triestini di Filologia classica 20 (2020–2021): 267–298.

“Fuor del dritto amore: la rappresentazione dell’incesto e la dinastia comnena”, in S. Quadrelli, E. Subrani (eds.), I figli di Eolo. Il motivo mitico e letterario dell’incesto tra antico e moderno, Il portico. Biblioteca di lettere e arti 187, Ravenna, Longo Editore, 2020): 103–113.

“La preoccupazione filosofica dei corvi nel fr. 393 Pf. di Callimaco”, Acme 70.1 (2017): 61–72.