Italian palaeographer, Byzantinist and librarian (1911–1991)
Elpidio Mioni (8 October 1911 – 6 September 1991) was an Italian palaeographer, Byzantinist and librarian, Professor of Greek Paleography at the University of Padua.
Biography.
Born in Bassano del Grappa, Mioni studied classics at the university of Padua and graduated, tutored by Manara Valgimigli, in 1934, specializing in Classical Philology in 1936. Loyal to his family's catholic and anti-fascist values, he was an active member of the federation of Italian Catholic university students (FUCI) and joined the Italian resistance movement to fight the Nazi occupation of Italy at the end of WWII.
He taught Greek and Latin in Veneto high schools for some 30 years, from 1938 to 1969; in 1954 he was habilitated to university teaching. In 1958 he joined to the University of Padua and taught Ancient Christian Literature (1958–1960), Byzantine philology (1960–1967) and Greek Palaeography (1960–1974). In 1968 Mioni and Filippo Maria Pontani jointly founded the Institute of Byzantine and Neohellenic Studies in the same university.
In 1974 Mioni became Full Professor of Greek Palaeography at the University of Padua; he retired in 1981.
Mioni died in Padua in 1991, aged 79. His son, Alberto Mioni (1942 – 2017), was a linguist and an Arabist and taught at the University of Padua himself.
Research Activity.
Mioni was primarily a Byzantinist, a palaeographer and a librarian. As a librarian and palaeographer, his major contributions were his cataloguing of Greek manuscripts held in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice and in other Italian libraries. He also wrote monographs on manuscripts of Aristotle's works in the Biblioteca Marciana and on Greek manuscripts in Veneto libraries, as well as a shorthand manual of Greek palaeography.
At the same time, he studied late antique and Byzantine literature, focusing on hagiography and hymnography. He wrote a critical study on the 6th century hymnwriter Romanos the Melodist and studied the manuscript tradition and the style of his "kontakia"; more broadly, he wrote critical essays on Byzantine hymns and ascetic works, including the "Spiritual Meadow". He also studied the manuscript tradition of the Greek Anthology, the manuscript tradition of Strabo, the life and cultural entourage of Bessarion and his books, and wrote his biography (which he left unfinished).
Additionally, he wrote several entries for the "Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani", and the article on John Moschus for the "Dictionnaire de Spiritualité".