FRANCO PIOTTI, CIÒ CHE SI FA SOTTO IL SOLE. QOHELET: APPUNTI SPARSI (STUDI BIBLICI), BOLOGNA: EDB, 2024. 302 PP. ISBN 978-8810978337.

Abstract

Franco Piotti’s volume belongs to the long philological tradition of Qoheleth studies. Ciò che si fa sotto il sole. Qohelet: appunti sparsi offers a series of readings of Ecclesiastes focused on several basic questions: the value of human toil, the meaning and limits of wisdom, the future of the human being, and the relation between created order, lived experience, and the disorder perceived in history. The phrase “under the sun” in the title keeps the discussion anchored in this earthly and experiential horizon.

Until his retirement, Franco Piotti conducted research at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. His work on Qoheleth goes back to his thesis, Il problema della lingua originale nell’Ecclesiaste. He later published numerous studies on Qoheleth and biblical wisdom literature in Bibbia e Oriente. His 2012 volume Qohelet. La ricerca del senso della vita, published by Morcelliana, marks an earlier stage of this long engagement. Piotti has also written on philology and the history of the Hebrew language. That background matters here, since the present book repeatedly reads theological questions through close attention to language, and textual detail.

Article history: Received 03.05.2026; Revised 05.05.2026; Accepted 15.05.2026.
Available online: 01.07.2026. Available print: 31.07.2026.