Berthe Marie Marti (May 11, 1904, in Vevey, Switzerland – June 4, 1995, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, US) was a Swiss-American scholar and teacher of classical and medieval Latin.
Among her numerous awards and distinctions: Rome Prize to the American Academy in Rome, 1944–1945; Fulbright Research Grant in Italy, 1946; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1954–1955; Martin Lectures ("Imitation and Originality in the Latin Epic of the Silver Age"), Oberlin College, 1972–73; elected Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, 1977.
Marti published two books, an edition of Arnulph of Orleans: Glosule super Lucanum (Rome 1958),[3] and The Spanish College at Bologna in the Fourteenth Century (Philadelphia 1966), as well as numerous articles and reviews.
Among her principal articles are "Arnulf and the Faits des Romans," Modern Language Quarterly 2 (1941) 3-23; "The Meaning of the Pharsalia," American Journal of Philology 66 (1945) 352-376;[4] "Seneca's Tragedies: a New Interpretation," Transactions of the American Philological Association 76 (1945) 216-45; "Vacca in Lucanum," Speculum 25 (1950) 198-214; "Lucan's Invocation to Nero in the Light of the Medieval Commentaries," Quadrivium 1 (1956) 1-11; "1372: The Spanish College versus the Executors of Cardinal Albornoz's Testament," Studia Albornotiana 12 (1972) (= El Cardinal Albornoz y el Colegio de España) 93-129.
After ridiculing one young man from the South for pronouncing "ten cents" like "tin cints", she suggested he carry a dictionary in his back pocket at all times and never be guilty again of spelling any word as it sounds.
If a student could not rattle off whether a word was dative or ablative, or what length the vowel was in scansion, she might say, impatiently, "Life is full of decisions!"
"Don't complain" she translated loosely in one instance, with a broad wink to the young men in the class, "about your girl having another sweetheart on the side; she might teach you a trick or two."