Rudolph Altrocchi was born in
Florence,
Italy. Altrocchi's family emigrated to the
United States when he was a child. He attended
Harvard University, earning his
Ph.D. in 1914. Between 1910 and 1928, he taught at
Columbia University,
Harvard University, the
University of Pennsylvania, the
University of Chicago, and
Brown University. From 1928 to his retirement in 1947, he served as chairman of the
Italian department at the
University of California, Berkeley. He married in 1920. His wife,
Julia Cooley Altrocchi, published a large number of children's books. They had two sons, John and Paul.
Paul Hemenway Altrocchi became a renowned neurologist. Altrocchi served in the
American Expeditionary Force during
World War I, managing propaganda and liaison functions in
Rome and
Lyon, France. Active in academic organisations, Altrocchi served as president of the American Association of Teachers of Italian and the Philological Association of the Pacific Coast. Altrocchi's 1944 book
Sleuthing in the Stacks was a collection of irreverent essays in which Altrocchi deftly dissected such varied topics as forged marginal notes in an obscure
Renaissance text, the literary and mythical predecessors of
Tarzan, and the image of
Dante in a minor painting in a church in
Florence. He died in
Berkeley,
California. ==Bibliography==