Anibal Bruno de Oliveira Firmo was born in the town of Palmares,Pernambuco, on 22 March 1890, toGercinoParente de Oliveira Firmo and Candida Carmelinda de Oliveira.
He did his primary education at Santa Isabel College in Palmares. At eleven years old, he moved to Recife, where he studied Humanities at the PernambucoGymnasium.
With the death of his father in 1901, he had to survive on his own, which made him very mature and responsible at an early age.
At twenty years of age, he married Aurora Spencer, in 1910, and three years later received his bachelor’s degree in legal and social sciences at the Recife Facultyof Law.
From 1909 to 1924, he worked as an administration officer at the Post Office and, after graduating, he also began teaching Portuguese in Recife schools.
In December 1925, graduated in medical sciences from the newly-created Recife Faculty of Medicine. Despite having obtained two higher education degrees, he did not fulfil his father’s dreamof seeing him graduate in Engineering.
He devoted himself to teaching various disciplines at several institutions: the PernambucoFaculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, the Specialisation School of the Pernambuco Educational Institute; Pinto Júnior Normal School, the Recife Faculty of Medicine, the PernambucoGymnasium (senior teacher),the Official State Normal School andthe Recife Faculty of Law.
As a director of the Department of Education of Pernambuco, he proposed the plan to reform the Official Normal School; he created the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides services in State primary schools, the Pedagogical Seminary, the Teachers’ Central Library, the CentralPedagogical Museum, the State’s EducationalBulletin,introduced physical education, music and orpheonic singing in primary schools and createdthe school system’s Anthropology, Psychology and Health Services within the Department of Education.
He represented Pernambuco in several education conferences and was one of the founders and directors of the Popular University of Recife.
He became a member of the Pernambuco AcademyofLetters, occupying the chair whose patron is Paula Batista.
Career teacher, doctor, jurist, educator and philologist, Anibal Bruno wrote, among others, the following works.
From 1926 to 1940: O equilíbrio ácido-base do sangue; Das glândulas paratireóides em patologia(The Acid-base Balance of Blood; Parathyroid Glands in Pathology); Chaucer na língua e na literatura inglesa(Chaucer in English Language and Literature); O exame Alfa (The Alpha Examination)(a psychological and psycho-technical study), O romantismo; Interjeições e onomatopéias(Romanticism, Interjections and Onomatopoeia); Um programa de política educacional(A Program of Educational Policy);Contribuição ao estudo da fisiopatologia constitucional(Contribution to the Study of the Constitutinoal Pathophysiology)(Applied Biotypology), A perigosidade criminal (TheCriminal Dangerousness),Tobias Barreto criminalista (Criminalist Tobias Barreto);Biologia e direito (Biology and Law), Medidas de segurança (Security Measures), (Língua portuguesa) Portuguese Language (4 volumes).
From 1941 to 1945: A Faculdade de Direito do Recife e o pensamento jurídico-penal brasileiro(The Recife Faculty of Law and Brazilian Criminal-legal Theory), Culpabilidade, imputabilidade, responsabilidade – formas de culpabilidade – o dolo e a culpa(Culpability, Responsibility, Accountability –Forms of Culpability - Guilt and Deceit); Estado de necessidade e Legítima defesa (The State of Necessity and Self Defence).
In the 1950s, already retired from teaching Criminal Law at the Recife Faculty of Law, he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he published, from 1956 to 1966, Direito Penal (Criminal Law) (four volumes), and in 1969, Comentários ao Código Penal (v.2) (Comments on the Criminal Code).
Anibal Bruno died on 17 April 1976, in Rio de Janeiro.
Recife,17 July 2006.
Updated on 20 August 2009.
Translated by Peter Leamy, January 2012.
Updated on 26 march 2018.
sources consulted
ANÍBAL Bruno [Foto neste texto]. Disponível em: <https://laurafranca.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/anibal-bruno/>. Acesso em: 19 mar. 2018.
CAVALCANTI, José Otavio. Três ilustres personalidades pernambucanas: João Marques, Nelson Chaves, Anibal Bruno. Recife: [s.n.], 1980. 37 p.
LUNA, Everardo da Cunha. Aníbal Bruno, o homem e a obra. Boletim da Cidade do Recife, Recife, n. 2, nova série, p. 35-72, dez. 1977.
how to quote this text
Source: GASPAR, Lúcia. Aníbal Bruno. Pesquisa Escolar Online, Joaquim Nabuco Foudation, Recife. Available at: <http://basilio.fundaj.gov.br/pesquisaescolar>. Accessed: day month year. Exemple: 6 Aug. 2009.