Giorgio Levi Della Vida
Encyclopedia
Giorgio Levi Della Vida 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...

 Jewish linguist
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 whose expertise lay in Hebrew, Arabic, and other Semitic languages
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...

, as well as on the history and culture of the Near East
Near East
The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for geographers, archeologists, and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...

.

Biography

Born in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 to a Jewish family originally from Ferrara
Ferrara
Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...

, he moved with them first to Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

 and then to Rome, from whose university he graduated in 1909 with the Hebraist Ignazio Guidi
Ignazio Guidi
Ignazio Guidi was an Italian orientalist. He became Professor at the University of Rome. He is known as a Hebraist and for many translations....

. Immediately after graduation, he participated in numerous research expeditions to Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

 (for the Italian School of Archaeology), and Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

.

In 1911 he returned to Rome, where he worked with Leone Caetani
Leone Caetani
Leone Caetani , Duke of Sermoneta , was an Italian scholar, politician and historian of the Middle-East....

, historian of the Near East, on the editorial staff of the Annals of Islam. He developed strong ties of friendship with Michelangelo Guidi, son of Ignazio and an illustrious Islamist himself, as well as with Gaetano De Sanctis
Gaetano De Sanctis
Gaetano De Sanctis was an Italian historian and lifetime senator .He was president of the "Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana" from 1947 to 1954....

, Ernesto Buonaiuti
Ernesto Buonaiuti
Ernesto Buonaiuti was an Italian historian, philosopher of religion, Christian priest and anti-fascist. He lost his chair at the University of Rome owing to his opposition to the Fascists and their Concordat with the Catholic Church....

, Giorgio Pasquali, Luigi Salvatorelli
Luigi Salvatorelli
Luigi Salvatorelli was an Italian historian and publicist, born in Marsciano, Perugina Italy, He was a political journalist in 1919 during Benito Mussolini's rise to power and was associated with La Stampa in 1921. Also member of Il Partito d'Azione .-External links:*Partito d'Azione *...

, and the Barnabite
Barnabites
The Barnabites, or Clerics Regular of Saint Paul is a Roman Catholic order.-Establishment of the Order :It was founded in 1530 by three Italian noblemen: St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria The Barnabites, or Clerics Regular of Saint Paul (Latin: Clerici Regulares Sancti Pauli, abbr. B.) is a Roman Catholic...

 priest Giovanni Semeria. Since he had always been deeply interested in religious matters, he used his connections with Semeria and Buonaiuti (excommunicated for his Modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

 convictions) to undertake some of the biblical studies he had neglected during his completely secular upbringing.

From 1914 to 1916, Levi Della Vida headed the department of Arabic language and literature at the Eastern University of Naples
Naples Eastern University
The Naples Eastern University is a university located in Naples, Italy. It was founded in 1732 and is organized in 4 Faculties...

.

During the First World War, he acted as an army interpreter, achieving the rank of lieutenant. Afterwards, he was assigned to the department of Semitic Philology at the University of Torino, a post he only held until 1919. In 1920, he went to work for Ignazio Guidi
Ignazio Guidi
Ignazio Guidi was an Italian orientalist. He became Professor at the University of Rome. He is known as a Hebraist and for many translations....

 at the University of Rome
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...

 as a professor of Hebrew and Comparative Semitic Languages
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...

.

In those years, he began to collaborate with some newspapers. He wrote for the Roman daily Il Paese, which ceased publication at the end of 1922, after its offices were destroyed by Fascist
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...

 squadristi. Levi Della Vida was also a victim of aggression on the part of the Fascists at around the same time.

At the invitation of Salvatorelli, who was the associate managing editor, he began to contribute to La Stampa
La Stampa
La Stampa is one of the best-known, most influential and most widely sold Italian daily newspapers. Published in Turin, it is distributed in Italy and other European nations. The current owner is the Fiat Group.-History:...

, where he testified to the political climate in Rome in the days following the passing of Giacomo Matteotti
Giacomo Matteotti
Giacomo Matteotti was an Italian socialist politician. On 30 May 1924, he openly spoke in the Italian Parliament alleging the Fascists committed fraud in the recently held elections, and denounced the violence they used to gain votes...

. On occasion, he also had contact with various leaders of the anti-Fascist opposition, including Giovanni Amendola
Giovanni Amendola
Giovanni Amendola was an Italian journalist and politician, noted as an opponent of Fascism....

, Carlo Sforza
Carlo Sforza
Conte Carlo Sforza was an Italian diplomat and anti-Fascist politician.-Biography:Sforza was born at Montignoso ....

 and Claudio Treves
Claudio Treves
Claudio Treves was an Italian politician and journalist.-Youth:Claudio Treves was born in Turin into a well off assimilated Jewish family...

.

In 1924, he became president of the National Union of Liberal and Democratic Forces, founded by Amendola, and the following year he signed the Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals
Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals
The Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, written by Benedetto Croce in response to the Manifesto of the Fascist Intellectuals by Giovanni Gentile, sanctioned the unreconcilable split between the philosopher and the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini, to which he had previously given a...

. In his autobiography, he claims not to have been particularly interested in political activism; he was, however, convinced that the critical period when Italy was faced with the rise of 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...

 required every citizen to take responsibility by participating in political life.

In the 1920s, he made the acquaintance of 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...

, a professor in Rome, with whom he began to collaborate on the Enciclopedia Treccani
Enciclopedia Italiana
The Enciclopedia Italiana di scienze, lettere ed arti , is an Italian encyclopedia, generally regarded as the most authoritative of that language...

as an expert in Hebrew and other Semitic languages.

Levi Della Vida was among the twelve Italian university professors who refused to pledge the oath of loyalty to the Fascist leader and regime imposed by article 18 of the Ordinary Law on August 28, 1931. Because of this refusal, Della Vida was expelled from his post at the university in 1932.

He continued, however, his collaboration with the Enciclopedia Treccani, for which he edited the entry on Hebraism
Hebraism
Hebraism is the identification of a usage, trait, or characteristic of the Hebrew language. By successive extension it is sometimes applied to the Jewish people, their faith, national ideology, or culture.- Idiomatic Hebrew :...

, among the many he completed.

At this time, he was assigned by the Vatican Library
Vatican Library
The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...

 to catalog its wealth of Arabic manuscripts, from which he culled a first selection for publication in 1935, followed by a second one thirty years later.

After the promulgation of the racial laws in 1939, he fled to the United States where he was offered teaching posts at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

 in Philadelphia as well as at the University of San Diego
University of San Diego
The University of San Diego is a Roman Catholic university in San Diego, California. USD offers more than sixty bachelor's, master’s, and doctoral programs...

 in California. In his later years, he would donate his personal collection of books and manuscripts to the library at the latter institution, as a token of thankfulness for the hospitality and tenure received there.

He returned to Italy in 1945, where he was reinstated to his post at the University of Rome, teaching Muslim history and culture until his retirement in 1959. In 1947. he was elected a member of the Accademia dei Lincei
Accademia dei Lincei
The Accademia dei Lincei, , is an Italian science academy, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy....

.

Levi Della Vida died in Rome in 1967 after a brief illness.

The University of California Los Angeles has created an editorial series in his name, The Giorgio Levi Della Vida Series in Islamic Studies, which joins the Giorgio Levi Della Vida Award (a bursary) in recognising exceptional scholarly work on Islamic studies. He also played an indirect but potentially important part in establishing contemporary generative linguistics and cognitive science—Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...

has credited Levi Della Vida with helping to stimulate his early interest in linguistics as an undergraduate, describing his course as 'the one freshman course that I found really engaging'.

Publications

Levi Della Vida's interests and linguistic research spanned many areas, including Semitic philology, Jewish and Islamic history, the Punic alphabet, and Syriac literature. The catalogue of his work reflects such a spectrum of passions.
  • Gli ebrei: storia, religione, civiltà ("The Jews: history, religion, civilization"), Messina-Roma, 1924
  • Storia e religione nell'Oriente semitico ("History and religion of the Semitic East"), Roma, 1924
  • Elenco dei manoscritti arabo-islamici della Biblioteca Vaticana: Vaticani, Barberiniani, Borgiani, Rossiani ("Index of the Arabic and Islamic manuscripts from the Vatican Library"), Città del Vaticano, 1935
  • Ricerche sulla formazione del più antico fondo dei manoscritti orientali della Biblioteca Vaticana ("Research on the creation of the most ancient set of oriental manuscripts at the Vatican Library"), Citta del Vaticano, 1939
  • Secondo elenco dei manoscritti arabi islamici della Biblioteca Vaticana (Second index of the Arabic and Islamic manuscripts from the Vatican Library"). Città del Vaticano, 1965
  • Arabi ed Ebrei nella storia ("Arabs and Jews in history"), Napoli, 1984
  • Iscrizioni puniche della Tripolitania, 1927-1967 (Punic writings in Tripolitania, 1927-1967"). Roma, 1987
  • Visita a Tamerlano: saggi di storia e letteratura (Visit to Tamerlano: essays in history and literature"), Napoli, 1988
  • Aneddoti e svaghi arabi e non arabi ("Anectodes and curiosities, Arabic and non-"), Milano-Napoli, 1959


In addition to his scholarly publications, he penned an autobiography in 1966, recently republished as Fantasmi ritrovati (Napoli, Liguori, 2004).

Journal articles

  • Levi Della Vida, G. (1934). Appunti e quesiti di storia letteraria araba. (RSO).
  • Levi Della Vida, G. (1943). The 'Bronce Era' in Moslem Spain.
  • Levi Della Vida, G. (1944a). El Elyon in Genesis 14, 18-20. Journal of Biblical Literature 63, 1-9.
  • Levi Della Vida, G. (1944b). Pre-Islamic Arabia. The Arab Heritage, Princeton.
  • Levi Della Vida, G. (1949a). Iscrizione araba di Ras el-Hammam. Scritti in onore di F. Beguinot, 77-81.
  • Levi Della Vida, G. (1949b). Nuova luce sulle fonti islamiche della Divina Commedia. Al-Andalus: revista de las Escuelas de Estudios Árabes de Madrid y Granada 14, 377.
  • Levi Della Vida, G. (1954a). Manoscritti arabi di origine spagnola nella Biblioteca Vaticana. Studi e Testi 220, 133-189.
  • Levi Della Vida, G. (1954b). Traduzione araba delle Storie di Orosio. Al-Andalus: revista de las Escuelas de Estudios Árabes de Madrid y Granada 19, 257.
  • Levi Della Vida, G. La corrispondenza di Berta di Toscana col califfo Muktafi: Rivista storica italiana, 66 (1954), p. 21-38.
  • Levi Della Vida, G. (1961). Linguistica semitica: presente e futuro. Rom: Centro.
  • Levi Della Vida, G. (1962). Un texte mozarabe d'histoire universelle.
  • Levi Della Vida, G. (1967). Le iscrizioni neopuniche della Tripolitania. Annali dell'Istituto Orientale di Napoli 17, 157-159.
  • Levi Della Vida, G. (1986). «Kusayy». The Encyclopedia of Islam, 520-521.

External links

  • http://dio.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/51/4/59 (English)
  • http://www.liguori.it/autore_pop.asp?autore=Giorgio_Levi_Della_Vida
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