Medea Norsa

Medea Vittoria Irma Norsa (1877–1952) was an Italian papyrologist and philologist. She headed the Istituto Papirologico Girolamo Vitelli in Florence from 1935 to 1949.

Early life and education Norsa was born to Michele Norsa and Silvia Vittoria Krosna in Trieste on 26 August 1877, the oldest of four children. She was christened Medea Vittoria Irma on 16 September 1877. while Gino Bandelli describes her father's family as having ceased all relations with the local Jewish community in the Austro-Hungarian empire after the mid-1800s. However, she then moved to the Istituto di Studi Superiori in Florence in 1901 after one year in Vienna. Norsa's year in Vienna and subsequent transfer to an Italian university was likely reflective of typical behaviour by Italian scholars in the Austro-Hungarian empire, to which Trieste belonged at the time.

In 1911, Norsa returned to Florence to work with Vitelli on the first volume of Papiri Greci e Latini della Società Italiana (PSI), which was published in 1912. Their ongoing collaboration continued up to Vitelli's death in 1935, and resulted in 11 volumes of the series. In 1935, she succeeded Vitelli as head of the Istituto Papirologico at the same university, which took on its founder's name to become the Istituto Papirologico Girolamo Vitelli. Norsa remained in the position of Institute head until 1949, overseeing excavations at Antinoopolis and another two fascicules of the PSI. The publication of some tables of literary papyri, originally intended to be published by the Institute of Classical Philology at Sapienza University of Rome, was repeatedly put off due to the insistence of Vincenzo Ussani, the institute director, on first clarifying Norsa's racial status. The tables were eventually published by the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. She is credited with the recognition and publication, in 1937, of a fragment of Sappho found on an ostracon (Sappho 2), This moved to the Accademia Fiorentina di Papirologia e di Studi sul Mondo Antico in Florence in 2014.

Select bibliography

(with Girolamo Vitelli) Papiri greci e latini, I-XIII, Firenze 1912–1953. 'La collezione fiorentina di papiri greci e latini,' Atene e Roma, n.s. 2., 1921, pp. 202–207. Papiri greci e collezioni italiane: scritture documentarie. Roma 1929–1933. (with Girolamo Vitelli) , Città del Vaticano, 1931. (with Girolamo Vitelli) '''Frammenti di scolii agli Aitia di Callimaco.' Bulletin de la Société Royale d'Archéologie d'Alexandrie 28, 1933, pp. 123–132. (with Girolamo Vitelli) Diegeseis di poemi di Callimaco in un papiro di Tebtynis, Firenze 1934. 'Un frammento di fisica aristotelica in un papiro fiorentino,' Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa 7, 1938, pp. 1–12. La scrittura letteraria greca dal secolo IV A.C. all’VIII D.C., Firenze 1939. 'Due frammenti fiorentini del papiro di Bacchilide P.Brit.Mus. 733. Una circolare ai pagarchoi della Tebaide del secolo VIII,' Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa 10, 1941, pp. 155–170. 'Un frammento del Romanzo di Nino,' in Scritti dedicati alla memoria di Ippolito Rosellini nel primo centenario della morte (4 giugno 1943), Firenze, 1945, pp. 191–197. Papiri greci delle collezioni italiane. Scritture documentarie dal III sec. a.C. al sec. VIII d.C., Roma, 1946. 'Papiro Vaticano greco n. 2037A,' Aegyptus'' 32, 1952, pp. 232–240.