Odifreddi’s Lucretius

Perhaps I will not add anything about an author who has demonstrated not only competence but also genuine originality in many of his works, but I want to write this review, trying not to slip into apologetics.
I am referring to Come stanno le cose. Il mio Lucrezio, la mia Venere, an essay (published by Rizzoli, 2014) by Piergiorgio Odifreddi (1950–), who, in a new complete translation of the poem De rerum natura by Titus Lucretius Carus (98/94–50/55), provides a version in modern words and meanings—not only to make it easier to understand ideas conceived two millennia ago, but above all to highlight their incredible modernity. An excellent conception of the work and an excellent execution, in which the translation on the right-hand pages and the interpretation on the facing pages make it possible to appreciate both the ideas that today we would call scientific and the philosophical visions of a great author.

In high school (a scientific high school) De rerum natura was the subject of a (mild) in-depth study (though we were required to buy a book about the poem, which I still keep). But our teacher was not able to convey its greatness and meanings, surely because he had not understood them himself, with the partial excuse that the ‘literal’ translation by someone who, perhaps like him, being wholly incompetent in scientific matters, was not even able to sense how, in recent centuries, science has confirmed some old intuitions, obviously at the level of general principles.

Odifreddi’s work, therefore, not only restores Lucretius to his full stature, but also tries to fill a gap that is perhaps typically Italian, where scientific culture has always been little widespread and little valued. This has not prevented excellence, of course, but Italians’ general lack of competence on scientific and technical topics is limiting in a modern world founded above all on technology. I realize I do not know the situation well in other countries, but my thought was also tied to the ‘historical responsibility’ of being part of a land that is a ‘cradle of civilization’ and of thought, now reduced to a third-rate caricature in geo-economic and political balances, unworthy of a cultural heritage that has no comparable equal in the world. A heritage that must be rediscovered, overcoming the obscurantist inertia of a ruling class inadequate to its role. And I am not referring only to the current one, except in the sense that, being in office, they are the only ones who could do more than a little to change things.

Perhaps it is a small gesture, Odifreddi’s, but it is an excellent achievement that deserves to be known.