TUCCI, GIUSEPPE (1894–1984), Italian scholar of Asian religions. Giuseppe Tucci was born in Macerata in the Marche region of Italy on June 5, 1894, and died on April 5, 1984, in his house in San Polo dei Cavalieri, near Tivoli, in the province of Rome. Tucci fought during World War I, and after the war he graduated from the University of Rome (1919). From 1925 to 1930 he resided in India, teaching Chinese and Italian at the universities of Santiniketan and Calcutta. In 1929 Tucci was elected to the Accademia d'Italia, and in 1930 he accepted the chair of the department of Chinese language and literature at the Istituto Universitario Orientale of Naples. He then accepted the chair of the department of religion and philosophy of India and the Far East at the University of Rome (1932), where he remained until his retirement in 1969.

In 1933 he was instrumental in the founding of the Istituto Italiano per il...