Mario Nicholas Pellicciaro, 89, an emeritus professor of classics at Washington and Lee University, died peacefully at home with his wife Barbara Crawford in Lexington, Virginia on November 8, 2018 after a heroic 10-year battle with cancer.

Born in New York City, he was the son of Italian immigrants Annunzio Pasquale Pellicciaro and Ovidia Paone Pellicciaro. His mother's name is the female version of Ovid and an influence on Mario's later interest in Italian literature and classics.

Mario and his brother, Rudy and sister, Antenisca grew up in Queens, Astoria, and were part of the Italian culture of the '40s and '50s. The singer Tony Bennett was a high school friend and is the one that suggested that Mario was too smart not to go to college.

Mario attended the Industrial School of Art and Design and later the City College of New York. Following City College, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Army, and served in Korea.

After returning from service, he pursued master's and doctoral studies in classics at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His specialty was Greek art and linguistics. After graduate work and before coming to Lexington, he taught classics at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Mario joined the faculty at Washington and Lee in 1966 and retired in 1999. In his years there, he taught ancient Greek, Greek and Latin literature in translation, structural linguistics, Greek art, philosophy, and elementary Italian. For many years he organized and conducted the university's travel study program in Greece. He served as a member of W&L's Glasgow Endowment Committee and on the editorial board of the university's literary magazine, Shenandoah. He was mentor to many friends and students in their artistic and literary quest where he gently but profoundly influenced so many minds.

Mario is remembered for his passion for life that included support for the arts. He and his wife, Barbara, were founding members of the Lime Kiln Arts board of directors. Mario was responsible for the research and calligraphy design of the names of ancient Greek artists for his friend Cy Towmbly's ceiling design in the Salle des Bronze, Louvre, Paris. His love for classics included continually translating text in one of the eight different languages he could read. He was always improving translations of text: biblical, classical, old English, French. His love for all things Italian included cooking Italian as his mother taught him and this was almost always for a large group of his friends and students. He was always willing to teach friends and students a cooking secret or skill.

Mario, Italian by birth, and Barbara spent most of their summers in Italy and for the last 15 years were residents of Spello, (PG) Umbria.

A community memorial celebration was held there last week and he will be laid to rest in the Spello cemetery.

He is survived by his wife, Barbara Lyons Crawford, professor of art and art history at Southern Virginia University; and his children, Andrew Pellicciaro of Washington, D.C., David Pellicciaro of Oakland, Calif., and Julia Pellicciaro Schaff of Barboursville; and two grandchildren, Dylan Schaff and Kyra Schaff. He was loved and adored by family and a special group of friends.

The family would like to offer special gratitude to Terran Sims and the staff at the Urology Department at the University of Virginia Medical School for an amazing 10 years of love, care and concern.