Luigi Pigorini 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...

 palaeoethnologist

Prehistory

Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...

, archaeologist and ethnographer.

Biography

Pigorini was born at Fontanellato

Fontanellato

Fontanellato is a small town in the province of Parma, in northern Italy. It lies on the plains of the River Po near the A1 autostrada, about 20 kilometres west of Parma towards Piacenza....

, near Parma

Parma

Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....

.

At the age of sixteen years, in 1858, he became an alumnus

Alumnus

An alumnus , according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is "a graduate of a school, college, or university." An alumnus can also be a former member, employee, contributor or inmate as well as a former student. In addition, an alumna is "a female graduate or former student of a school, college,...

 of the Museo d'Antichità di Parma or Museum of Antiquities of Parma
(now Parma Archaeological Museum). He later encountered Pellegrino Strobel , the professor of Natural Sciences at the University of Parma

University of Parma

The University of Parma is one of the oldest universities in the world, founded in the 11th century. It is organised in twelve faculties. The University of Parma has currently about 30,000 students.-History:...

 and Gaetano Chierici

Gaetano Chierici

Gaetano Chierici was an Italian painter.-Biography:Having attended the Reggio Emilia School of Fine Arts in 1850 and 1851, Chierici continued his studies at the academies of Modena and Florence before completing his training in Bologna under the guidance of Giulio Cesare Ferrari...

, director of the Gabinetto di Antichità Patrie di Reggio Emilia or Cabinet of Antiquities of the native land of Reggio Emilia (now Musei Civici di Reggio Emilia http://musei.comune.re.it/museo/museire.nsf/pagine/B91F36D4E3C4526DC1256ECF0055C2E6?OpenDocument) and began archaeological research in the territory of Parmesan. In 1863 he began to travel in Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

and Tuscany

Tuscany

Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

, and also studied in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 and Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

.

He ran a course in Parma where he resorted to various materials in order to explain the uses and the functions of
prehistoric tools. A few years later after becoming a bachelor of arts

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 in Political and Administrative Sciences he became director of the Museum of Antiquity of Parma.

In 1875 he founded with Chierici and Strobel a paleoethnological journal Bollettino di Paletnologia Italiana and, in the same year, began working in the Archaeological Director General's office in Rome (Direzione Generale dei Musei e degli Scavi d'Antichità del Regno a Roma) where he proposed to the Minister of Public education, Bonghi, the foundation of the Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography

Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography

The Luigi Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography is a public and research museum located in Rome, Italy. Established in 1876 by Luigi Pigorini, it is currently directed by Maria Antonietta Fugazzola. One important collection of the Pigorini houses is Neolithic artifacts from Lake...

 in Rome, that was inaugurated in 1876 and which bears his name. For his outstanding contribution to Italian archaeology he was nominated a Senatore a vita

Senator for life

A senator for life is a member of the senate or equivalent upper chamber of a legislature who has life tenure. , 7 Italian Senators out of 322, 4 out of the 47 Burundian Senators and all members of the British House of Lords have lifetime tenure...

 in 1912 and was vice president of the Italian Senate

Italian Senate

The Senate of the Republic is the upper house of the Italian Parliament. It was established in its current form on 8 May 1948, but previously existed during the Kingdom of Italy as Senato del Regno , itself a continuation of the Senato Subalpino of Sardinia-Piedmont established on 8 May 1848...

 in 1919 remaining so until his death in Padua

Padua

Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

 in 1925.

Achievements

Pigorini's work with Strobel on the lake-dwelling Terramara is a seminal work of prehistory informed by uniting paleontology

Paleontology

Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...

, botany

Botany

Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

, zoology

Zoology

Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...

, entomology

Entomology

Entomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology...

, palynology

Palynology

Palynology is the science that studies contemporary and fossil palynomorphs, including pollen, spores, orbicules, dinoflagellate cysts, acritarchs, chitinozoans and scolecodonts, together with particulate organic matter and kerogen found in sedimentary rocks and sediments...

, geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

, anthropology

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

 and archaeology

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 to build a complete picture of these bronze age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

 communities.

Selected works

• with Strobel Le terremare e le palafitte del Parmense (subtitle) seconda relazione del Prof. P.Strobel and Pigorini Tipi di G. Bernadoni, Milano (1864) - also in parts in Atti della Societa italiana di Scienze Naturali (Milan).
• with Lubbock. J.
  John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury
  John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury PC , FRS , known as Sir John Lubbock, 4th Baronet from 1865 until 1900, was a polymath and Liberal Member of Parliament....
  
  . Notes on the hut-urns and other objects discovered in an ancient cemetery in the commune of Marino (province of Rome) [read to the Society of Antiquaries 2 April 1868], Archaeologia 42: 103— (1868)
• ‘Inchiesta sul Museo di Villa Giulia
  Villa Giulia
  The Villa Giulia is a villa in Rome, Italy. It was built by Pope Julius III in 1550–1555 on what was then the edge of the city. Today it is publicly owned, and houses the Museo Nazionale Etrusco, an impressive collection of Etruscan art and artifacts....
  
  ’, Supplemento al Bollettino Ufficiale del Ministero dell’ Istruzione Pubblica 26 (1899) (ed. L. Pigorini), 1107-1142 (1899)
• Pani di rame provenienti dall 'Egeo e scoperti e Serra Ilixi in provinciadi Cagliari. Bollettino di Paletnologia Italiana 10: 91-107 (1904).
• A complete list of Pignori's papers in Bollettino di Paletnologia Italiana is here contents

Sources

• Duhn, Friedrich von Rellini, U. Necrologio del prof. L. Pigorini Vorgeschichtliches Jahrbuch, 3:274. Berlin, 1927.
• Brizzi, Bruno [ed.] 1976 The Pigorini Museum Rome, Quasar.
• Italian Wikipedia