• Date of Birth: October 24, 1917
  • Born City: Staten Island
  • Born State/Country: NY
  • Parents: Anthony Joseph & Katherine Ryan G.
  • Date of Death: October 09, 1991
  • Death City: Bronx
  • Death State/Country: NY
  • Education:

    B.A. Georgetown U., 1940; Ph.L. Woodstock, MD, 1941; M.A. St. Louis U., 1942; S.T.L. Woodstock, 1948; Ph.D. Princeton, 1955.

  • Dissertation:

    “The Enthymeme in Aristotle” (Princeton, 1955).

  • Professional Experience:

    Instr. to asst. prof, class. Canisius Coll., 1942-4, 1954-5; chair class, dept., 1954-5; asst. prof, class. Bellarmine Coll. (NY), 1955-9; instr. to prof, class. Fordham, 1949-50, 1959-88; vis. fell. Princeton, 1968-9, 1974-5, 1980-1, 1986-7; vis. schol. Stanford, 1981; John Harding Page Fell. Princeton, 1951-3; Fulbright fell. ASCSA, 1953-4; NEH Sr. Fell., 1981; NEH Summer Stipend, 1986.

  • Publications:

    “A Note on the ΠΙΣΤΕΙΣ in Aristotle's Rhetoric 1354-1356,” AJP 78 (1957) 188-92; “Rhetoric and the Philosophy of Aristotle,” CJ 53 (1957-8) 371-5; “The Aristotelian Topics,” Traditio 14 (1958) 1-16; rev. of W. D. Ross, ed., Aristotelis Topica et Sophistici Elenchi (Oxford, 1958), AJP 81 (1960) 315-22; “Aristotle, Rhetoric 1391b29 and 1396b29,” CP 56 (1961) 38-43; “The Lesbia Love Lyrics,” CP 60 (1965) 87-95; Studies in the Philosophy of Aristotle's Rhetoric, Hermes Einzelschr. 25 (Wiesbaden, 1972); “Rhetoric and Truth: A Note on Aristotle, Rhetoric 1355a 21-24,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 11 (1978) 173-7; “Semeion, Tekmerion, Eikos in Aristotle's Rhetoric,” AJP 101 (1980) 383-98; Aristotle. Rhetoric I: A Commentary (New York, 1980); Aristotle, Rhetoric II: A Commentary (New York, 1988).

  • Notes:

    Grimaldi's interests ranged broadly over Greek literature, history, and philosophy and some of the Latin poets, but his enduring scholarly achievement is his work on Aristotelian rhetoric. His commentaries on the Rhetoric resumed a kind of detailed exegesis that had not been practiced on that text since the days of E. M. Cope (1877). Grimaldi's long service to Fordham included founding and directing (1964-9) the Honors Program of the university's now defunct women's college and work on undergraduate curriculum revision in the late 1970s. He could be demanding in class. “Grimaldi,” one undergraduate wrote in 1970, “why do you flail your arms / In unchained excitement when / Our limbs are still numb with sleep?” But just beneath the surface of that flailing was an avuncular concern for each of his charges.

  • Sources:

    Fordham Departmental Files; Fordham Magazine (Spring-Summer 1981) 3-4.

  • Author: Robert J. Penella