Francisco Rico awarded honorary doctorate by the University of Bologna

08/04/2016

Francisco Rico, emeritus lecturer of the UAB Department of Spanish Studies of the UAB, was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bologna on 11 April. The event was presided by Francesco Ubertini, rector of the university, and Francesco Citti, director of the Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies.

Francisco Rico is emeritus professor of Spanish Studies and has been member of the Royal Spanish Academy since 1987. He is a specialist in the works of Francesco Petrarca and also one of the greatest experts on Don Quixote in the world. He recently donated his library to the UAB, and even helped to organise "Los Quijotes de la Autónoma", which was on display in 2015 at the Communication Library and can still be visited in its online version.

The philologists is also member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and the British Academy, and is considered a student of José Manuel Blecua and Martín de Riquer. He has produced several editions of Cervantes' novel as well as other medieval classics and books from the Spanish Golden Age. Francisco Rico has received several awards such as the Menéndez Pelayo International Prize, the National Research Award "Ramón Menéndez Pidal", the International "Caballero Bonald" Essay Prize and the Alfonso Reyes International Prize, Mexico. This year he has received the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport.

The University of Bologna presents its new honorary doctor as "one of today's greatest Romance philologists" and highlights his research on the works of Petrarca and Italian humanism, his work on the journal Ecdotica with Emilio Pasquini and Gian Mario Anselmi and his contributions to the royal Spanish Academy's Classics Library.

More information: Università di Bologna