Vinci, Felice 1946-

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Vinci, Felice 1946-

PERSONAL:

Born February 21, 1946; in Rome, Italy; son of Vincenzo (a doctor) and Lucia (an educator) Vinci; children: Vincenzo. Education: Earned university degree. Religion: Roman Catholic. Hobbies and other interests: Ancient history and classics.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Rome, Italy. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

ENEL (National Society for Electricity), Rome, Italy, manager, 1974-97; SOGIN (Society for Nuclear Management), Rome, manager, 1997-2004. Military service: Italian Army, reserve officer, 1973.

MEMBER:

Rotary Club, MENSA.

WRITINGS:

Homericus Nuncius: il mondo di Omero nel Baltico, M. Solfanelli (Chieti, Italy), 1993.

Omero nel Baltico: saggio sulla geografia omerica, Fratelli Palombi Editore (Rome, Italy), 1995, 4th edition, Fratelli Palombi Editore (Rome, Italy), 2003, translation by Vinci and Amalia De Franscesco published as The Baltic Origins of Homer's Epic Tales: The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Migration of Myth, Inner Traditions (Rochester, VT), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Felice Vinci is a nuclear engineer with an extensive background in Latin and Greek studies. Vinci told CA: "I have been interested in the Greek poet Homer and Greek mythology since I was seven years old. My elementary schoolteacher gave me a book about the Trojan War, so the leading characters of Homer's poem, ‘Iliad,’ were as important for me as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.

"In 1992, I found the Greek historian Plutarch's key-indication which positioned the island Ogygie in the North Atlantic ocean. I decided to dedicate myself to this research. The ancient Greek that I had studied in secondary school helped me very much. Subsequently, I was helped and encouraged by Professor Rosa Calzecchi Onesti, a famous scholar who has translated both of Homer's poems, ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey,’ into Italian. Her translations are considered a point of reference for scholars in Italy.

"After the publication of my book Homericus Nuncius: il mondo di Omero nel Baltico, in Italy, I was invited to expound my theory in various universities around the world, including Pavia, Padua, Rome (Italy), Riga (Latvia), and Vancouver (Canada). After the book was published in Russia in 2004, with the introduction by professor Tatyana Devyatkina (who has the chair of classical philology at the University of Saransk), I presented the Russian edition at the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg.

"After my book was published in the United States, under the title The Baltic Origins of Homer's Epic Tales: The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Migration of Myth, in June 2006, professor William Mullen, who teaches classics at Bard College in New York, sailed from Stockholm, Sweden, on a sailboat with four of his pupils to follow Ulysses's course as indicated in my book. This event was financed by a 6,000-dollar grant from the Sea Education Association, a prestigious U.S. oceanographic institute. The U.S. edition of the book is now a text for the students at Bard College.

"A scientific international workshop on ‘Homer in the Baltic’ was inspired by my book and took place in Toija, Finland, on August 10, 2007, with archaeologists and professors from the Universities of Milan, Rome, Pavia, Messina, New York, and Riga in attendance.

"I continue to work on my theory. I think it could be useful to give a cultural basis to the idea of the unity of Europe that, until now, has only been approached from an economic and financial perspective.

"My theory is that the real setting of the ‘Iliad’ and the ‘Odyssey’ is not in the Mediterranean Sea, but in the north of Europe. The sagas that gave rise to the two poems came from the Baltic regions, where the Bronze Age flourished in the second millennium B.C. and many Homeric places, such as Ithaca and Troy, can still be identified. The blond Achaeans who founded the Mycenaean civilization in the sixteenth century B.C. brought these tales from Scandinavia to Greece after the end of the "post-glacial climatic optimum." Then they rebuilt their original world, where the Trojan War and many other mythical events had taken place, in the Mediterranean. The memory of this heroic age and the feats performed by their ancestors in their lost homeland was preserved through many generations by their oral tradition, until it was ultimately put in writing in the eighth century B.C., when alphabetical writing was introduced in Greece. In my opinion this ‘rediscovery’ of Homer could contribute to the birth of a new humanism in Western culture."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Midwest Book Review, August, 2006, Henry Berry, review of The Baltic Origins of Homer's Epic Tales: The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Migration of Myth.

Reference & Research Book News, May, 2006, review of The Baltic Origins of Homer's Epic Tales.