Giuseppe Tucci - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Giuseppe Tucci was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

scholar of oriental cultures, specialising in Tibet

Tibet

Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...

and history of Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

. During its zenith, Tucci was a supporter of Italian Fascism

Italian Fascism

Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...

, and he used idealized portrayals of Asian traditions to support Italian ideological campaigns. Tucci was fluent in several European languages, Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

, Bengali

Bengali language

Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...

, Pali

Páli

- External links :* *...

, Prakrit

Prakrit

Prakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious...

, Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

and Tibetan

Tibetan language

The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...

and he taught at the University of Rome La Sapienza

University of Rome La Sapienza

The Sapienza University of Rome, officially Sapienza – Università di Roma, formerly known as Università degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a coeducational, autonomous state university in Rome, Italy...

until his death. He is considered one of the founders of the field of Buddhist Studies

Buddhist Studies

Buddhist studies, also known as Buddhology , is the academic study of Buddhism. The term applies especially to the modern academic field, which is a subset of Religious Studies, and is distinct from Buddhist philosophy or Buddhist theology...

Education and background

He was born to a middle-class family in Macerata

Macerata

Macerata is a city and comune in central Italy, the capital of the province of Macerata in the Marche region.The historical city center is located on a hill between the Chienti and Potenza rivers. It consisted of the Picenes city named Ricina, then, after the romanization, Recina and Helvia Recina...

, Marche

Marche

The population density in the region is below the national average. In 2008, it was 161.5 inhabitants per km2, compared to the national figure of 198.8. It is highest in the province of Ancona , and lowest in the province of Macerata...

, and thrived academically. He taught himself Hebrew, Chinese

Chinese language

and Sanskrit

Sanskrit

before even going to university and in 1911, aged only 18, he published a collection of Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

epigraphs in the prestigious Review of the Germanic Archaeological Institute. He completed his studies at the University of Rome

University of Rome La Sapienza

in 1919, where his studies were repeatedly interrupted as a result of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

.

After graduating, he traveled to India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

and settled down at the Visva-Bharati University

Visva-Bharati University

Visva Bharati University is a Central University for research and teaching in India, located in the twin towns of Santiniketan and Sriniketan in the Indian state of West Bengal. It was founded by Rabindranath Tagore who called it Visva Bharati, which means the communion of the world with India...

, founded by the Bengali

Bengali people

The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...

poet and Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...

. There he studied Buddhism

Buddhism

, Tibetan

Tibetan language

and Bengali

Bengali language

, and also taught Italian and Chinese. He also studied and taught at Dhaka University, the University of Benares and Calcutta University. He remained in India until 1931, when he returned to Italy

Italy

Scholarship and reputation

He was Italy's foremost scholar of the East, with such diverse research interests ranging from ancient Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

ian religion to Chinese philosophy

Chinese philosophy

Chinese philosophy is philosophy written in the Chinese tradition of thought. The majority of traditional Chinese philosophy originates in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States era, during a period known as the "Hundred Schools of Thought", which was characterized by significant intellectual and...

. He taught primarily at the University of Rome

University of Rome La Sapienza

but was a visiting scholar at institutions throughout Europe and Asia. In 1931, the University of Naples made him its first Chair of Chinese Language and Literature. In 1933, with the philosopher Giovanni Gentile

Giovanni Gentile

Giovanni Gentile was an Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist philosopher, a peer of Benedetto Croce. He described himself as 'the philosopher of Fascism', and ghostwrote A Doctrine of Fascism for Benito Mussolini. He also devised his own system of philosophy, Actual Idealism.- Life and thought :Giovanni...

, he founded the Italian Institute for the Middle and Far East (Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente), based in Rome.

Tucci officially visited Japan for the first time in November 1936, and remained there until January 1937, when he attended at the opening of the Italian-Japanese Institute (Istituto Italo-nipponico) in Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

. Tucci traveled all over Japan giving lectures on Tibet and "racial purity".

He organised several pioneering archaeological digs throughout Asia, such as in Swat in Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, Ghazni

Ghazni

For the Province of Ghazni see Ghazni ProvinceGhazni is a city in central-east Afghanistan with a population of about 141,000 people...

in Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

, Persepolis

Persepolis

Perspolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire . Persepolis is situated northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran. In contemporary Persian, the site is known as Takht-e Jamshid...

in Iran

Iran

and in the Himalayas

Himalayas

The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

. He was also the promoter of the National Museum of Oriental Art

National Museum of Oriental Art

The National Museum of Oriental Art is an important museum in Rome, Italy, dedicated to the arts of the Orient, from the Middle East to Japan....

. In 1978 he received the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding, in 1979 the Balzan Prize

Balzan Prize

The International Balzan Prize Foundation awards four annual monetary prizes to people or organisations who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, culture, as well as for endeavours for peace and the brotherhood of man.-Rewards and assets:Each year the...

for History (ex aequo with Ernest Labrousse

Ernest Labrousse

Camille-Ernest Labrousse was a French historian specializing in social and economic history.Labrousse established a historical model centered on three nodes—economic, social and cultural—inventing the quantitative history sometimes now called "cliometrics"...

). During the course of his life, he wrote over 360 books and articles.

Politics

Tucci was a supporter of Italian Fascism

Italian Fascism

and Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

. He wrote popular articles for the Italian state that decried the rationalism of industrialized 1930s-1940s Europe and yearned for an authentic existence in touch with nature, that he claimed could be found in Asia. According to Tibetologist Donald S. Lopez

Donald S. Lopez, Jr.

Donald Sewell Lopez, Jr. is currently the Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan, in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures....

, "For Tucci, Tibet was an ecological paradise and timeless utopia into which industrialized Europe figuratively could escape and find peace, a cure for western ills, and from which Europe could find its own pristine past to which to return."

Selected bibliography

Indo-tibetica 1: Mc'od rten e ts'a ts'a nel Tibet indiano ed occidentale: contributo allo studio dell'arte religiosa tibetana e del suo significato, Roma, Reale Accademia d'Italia, 1932 (Chinese transl.:《梵天佛地 1: 西北印度和西藏西部的塔和擦擦——试论藏族宗教艺术及其意义》, 魏正中萨尔吉主编. 上海, 上海古籍出版社, 2009);
Indo-tibetica 2: Rin c'en bzan po e la rinascita del buddhismo nel Tibet intorno al Mille, Roma, Reale Accademia d'Italia, 1933 (English transl.: Rin-chen-bzan-po and the renaissance of Buddhism in Tibet around the millennium, New Delhi, Aditya Prakashan, [1988]; Chinese transl.:《梵天佛地 2: 仁钦桑波及公元1000年左右藏传佛教的复兴》, 魏正中萨尔吉主编. 上海, 上海古籍出版社, 2009);
(with E. Ghersi) Cronaca della missione scientifica Tucci nel Tibet occidentale (1933), Roma, Reale Accademia d'Italia, 1934 (English transl.: Secrets of Tibet. Being the chronicle of the Tucci Scientific Expedition to Western Tibet, 1933, London & Glasgow, Blackie & Son, 1935);
Indo-tibetica 3 : I templi del Tibet occidentale e il loro simbolismo artistico, 2 vols, Roma, Reale Accademia d'Italia, 1935-1936 (Chinese transl.:《梵天佛地 3: 西藏西部的寺院及其艺术象征》, 魏正中萨尔吉主编. 上海, 上海古籍出版社, 2009);
Santi e briganti nel Tibet ignoto: diario della spedizione nel Tibet occidentale 1935, Milano, U. Hoepli, 1937;
Indo-tibetica 4: Gyantse ed i suoi monasteri, 3 vols, Roma, Reale Accademia d'Italia, 1941 (English transl.: Gyantse and its monasteries, New Delhi, Aditya Prakashan, 1989; Chinese transl.:《梵天佛地 4: 江孜及其寺院》, 魏正中萨尔吉主编. 上海, 上海古籍出版社, 2009);
Asia religiosa, Roma, Partenia, 1946;
Tibetan Painted Scrolls, 3 vols, Roma, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1949;
Teoria e pratica del Mandala, Roma, Astrolabio, 1949 (English transl.: The theory and practice of the Mandala, London, Rider and Co., 1961);
Italia e Oriente, Milano, Garzanti, 1949;
Tibetan folksongs from the district of Gyantse, Ascona, Artibus Asiae, 1949; 2nd rev. ed. 1966;
The Tombs of the Tibetan Kings, Roma, IsMEO, 1950;
A Lhasa e oltre, Roma, La Libreria dello Stato, 1950 (English transl.: To Lhasa and beyond, Roma, La Libreria dello Stato, 1956);
Tra giungle e pagode, Roma, La Libreria dello Stato, 1953;
Preliminary report on two scientific expeditions in Nepal, Roma, IsMEO, 1956;
Storia della filosofia indiana, Bari, Laterza, 1957;
Nepal: alla scoperta dei Malla, Bari, Leonardo da Vinci, 1960 (English transl.: Nepal. The discovery of the Malla, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1962);
Die Religionen Tibets in G. Tucci and W. Heissig, Die Religionen Tibets und der Mongolei, Stuttgart, W. Kohlhammer, 1970 (English transl.: The religions of Tibet, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980).

External links

Giuseppe Tucci: Life, Travels and Adventures of the Explorer of Fascism: Blog including unedited documents such as his letters to Mussolini, to the Royal Preceptor of Nepal and to Giulio Andreotti, and documents on his relationship with Gandhi, Tagore, Giovanni Gentile, Karl Houshofer, Mircea Eliade, and so on.
Giuseppe Tucci: Life and Works, Explorations, Digital library, Photographic archives, Texts' collections
A Great Man from Macerata Who Went Far: Giuseppe Tucci - the Marches Region and the East
Images of Earth and Water: The Tsa-Tsa Votive Tablets of Tibet - Giuseppe Tucci and Stupa Symbolism

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