Antonino Pagliaro (Mistretta 1898-1973)
He studied at the Royal Gymnasium in Mistretta before moving to Palermo and Florence where he attended the university course in classical philology at the chair of G. Vitelli. In Heidelberg, he specialized in Indo-European Linguistics and Iranian Studies with Christian Bartolomae. He thus became an eminent representative among the Italian Orientalists and linguists.
He also devoted himself to university teaching since 1927. In Rome, he kept the chair in Linguistics and Iranian Studies and in Philosophy of Language between 1956 and 1961.
As eminent intellectual, he was appointed editor-in-chief of the Enciclopedia Italiana (1925-29), executive director of Dizionario di politica (1940), executive director of the magazine Ricerche linguistiche, and member of Accademia dei Lincei (1966).
He particularly stood out in the historic interpretation of linguistic events and in the exegesis of texts based on the criterion of the “semantic criticism” in the Indo-European field and in the novel, dealing with and solving complex issues, such as the digamma in Homer, the notion of “sacred” in the Greek language, the holy fires of Zoroastrianism, the language of the Siculi, Ligurians in Sicilia, the Arab element in the Sicilian dialect, the Latin civilization of Sicily.
In the field of the Iranian Studies, he carried out etymological research, published and illustrated epigraphic, literary and legal texts. This activity was the reason of his frequent involvement in official meetings between the highest delegates of Italy and Persia. As a theorist of language, he passed from historicist idealism to a personal view that recognized language as a distinctive system of knowledge.
Among his works, Epica e romanzo nel Medioevo Persiano (1927); Sommario di linguistica ario-europea (1930); Il segno vivente (1952; new ed. 1969); Saggi di critica semantica (1955); Nuovi saggi di critica semantica (1956); La parola e l'immagine (1957); Poesia giullaresca e poesia popolare (1958); Storia della letteratura persiana (1960); Alessandro Magno (1961); Altri saggi di critica semantica (1961); Linee di storia linguistica dell'Europa (1963); Ulisse: ricerche semantiche sulla Divina Commedia (1966); Ironia e verità (1970); La forma linguistica (1973).