Claudia Pellegrini
I am from South Tyrol, a trilingual region in northern Italy near the border to Austria. I grew up speaking German, Italian and two dialects in the family. After graduating at Verona University in Lingue e letterature straniere, I became an English teacher at a high school in my home town and I have been teaching ever since. Some years ago I decided to go back to uni and do a PHD in linguistics. I co-authored several publications while working for the DyME research group at Innsbruck University (Austria). I graduated in 2020 with a doctoral thesis on polyglots and language maintenance.
The Man behind the Myth: Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, the Greatest Polyglot of all Times. Research Journey into the Mezzofanti Archive
I would like to share some insights on Mezzofanti’s life and language learning path which I gained during my doctoral study on polyglots. They have been taken from the biography on the Cardinal by C. W. Russell as well as from the book by F. Pasti on Mezzofanti’s work as a librarian at the University Library of Bologna and as a censor and ecclesiastical reviewer. I would also like to illustrate my findings with some photos taken in the Cardinal’s hometown Bologna and in the Mezzofanti archive. The photos of Mezzofanti’s neat handwriting and his flash cards can be of interest to any modern polyglot. References: Pasti, F. (2006). Un poliglotta in biblioteca: Giuseppe Mezzofanti (1774-1849) a Bologna nell'età della Restaurazione (1. ed.). Lyceum: Vol. 6. Bologna: Pàtron. Pellegrini, C. (2020). What Polyglots Can Teach Us. Language Maintenance in Multilinguals from a Dynamic Model of Multilingualism Perspective. Doctoral thesis, Innsbruck University, Austria. Retrieved from https://ulb-dok.uibk.ac.at/ulbtirolhs/content/titleinfo/5254162 Russell, C. W. (1858). The life of Cardinal Mezzofanti; with an introductory memoir of eminent linguists, ancient and modern. London: Longman, Brown, and co. Retrieved from https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001462896