Giovanni Verardi
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6 September 1947
Giovanni Verardi | |
|---|---|
| Born | Giovanni Verardi 6 September 1947 San Pietro in Casale, Bologna, Italy |
| Occupation | Professor |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Citizenship | Italian |
Giovanni Verardi (born 1947) is an Italian archaeologist specialising in the civilisations of central Asia and India. He has published findings about sites in Afghanistan, Nepal, India, and China. Verardi has joined or directed several archaeological missions to central Asia, and held positions on Italian scientific boards. He has a particular interest in Indian iconography and history.
Giovanni Verardi (born 1947) was a professor at the University of Naples of Oriental Studies ("L'Orientale"), Italy, where he taught Art and Archaeology of Central Asia and Art and Archaeology of India. He spent time in a number of universities outside Italy, including as a maître de conférences at the Collège de France in Paris, guest professor at the University of Kyoto, and visiting professor in Japan (Kyoto University, Seijō University, and International College for Advanced Buddhist Studies in Tokyo).
As early as 1970 he joined the Italian Archaeological Mission to Afghanistan, where he started his work as field archaeologist at the Buddhist site of Tapa Sardar near Ghazni, in whose territory he carried out extensive surveys that led to the discovery of several groups of Buddhist rock-cut monasteries.
In 1981 he joined the Italian Archaeological Mission to Nepal, of which he became director in 1988. Research work was first carried out at the site of Harigaon in Kathmandu and after at the Aśokan site of Gotihawa in the Tarai, c. 25 km west of Lumbini.
In the 1980s Verardi participated in the activities of the German-Italian Mission to Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, where he could ascertain that the so-called stūpa-cum monastery rising upon the ruins of the Indus town is nothing but the articulated late phase of the Indus religious/ritual building, erroneously interpreted as a Buddhist structure by John Marshall. Between 1998 and 2003, Verardi was co-director of the Italian-Chinese team engaged in the excavation of the Fengxiansi monastery at Longmen near Luoyang, connected with the Empress Wu Zetian (AD 690‒705) and rebuilt during the Song dynasty.
Besides his activity as a field archaeologist, Verardi has devoted himself to the study of Indian iconography and Indian history. He retired in November 2007.
Academic positions
- Tenant of a ‘Fellowship for promoting teaching and research formation’ at the Università degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale" and at the University of Venice from 1972 to 1980
- Reader at the University of Venice and the University of Bologna from 1981 to 1987
- Associate Professor of 'Archaeology and Art History of North-Western India and Afghanistan' at the Università "L'Orientale" from 1988 to 1993
- Professor of 'Archaeology and Art History of Central Asia' at the Università "L'Orientale" from 1994 to 2000
- Professor of 'Archaeology and Art History of India' at the Università "L'Orientale" from 2000 to 2007, also entrusted with the teaching of 'Archaeology and Art History of Central Asia' from 2000 to 2003.
- 1976–77 at the École française d'Extrême-Orient, Pondicherry, India
- 1990–91 Maître de conférences, Collège de France (Histoire du monde indien), Paris
- Sabbatical year 1997–98 at the École française d'Extrême-Orient, Pondicherry and Asiatic Society, Calcutta
- Guest scholar at the Institute for the Research in the Humanities, Kyoto University, March 2000 and March 2002
- Visiting professor at Seijō University, Tokyo, September 2006 – February 2007
- Visiting professor at Kyoto University (Institute for Research in the Humanities), 2010
- Visiting professor, International College for Advanced Buddhist Studies, Tokyo 2011
- Member of the Italian Archaeological Mission to Afghanistan from 1970 to 1978
- Member of the Italian Archaeological Mission to Nepal from 1981 to 1987
- Member of the German-Italian Archaeological Mission to Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan, from 1984 to 1987
- Director of the Italian Archaeological Mission to Nepal from 1988 to 2007
- Director of the Italian Archaeological Mission to Afghanistan from 2002 to 2004
- Co-director of the Italian Archaeological Mission to Luoyang, China, from 1997 to 2002
- Italian Representative of the UNESCO Committee for Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005
- Fellow of Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO, former IsMEO), Rome, since 1974
- Charged by the Soprintendenza ai Beni Culturali of Venice with the new inventory of the Museo Orientale of Venice, 1976–77
- Charged by the University of Bologna and the Museo Medievale e del Rinascimento of Bologna with the re-organisation of the Pullé Indian collection, 1984–89
- Member of the Scientific Board of the monthly magazine Archeo from 1986 to 1991
- Charged by the University of Florence with the new arrangement of the De Gubernatis Indian collection of the Museo Nazionale di Antropologia ed Etnologia, Florence, 1987
- Member of the Scientific Board of Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente from 2000 to 2004
- Co-editor (Middle and Far-Eastern sections) of the II Supplement (5 vols.) to Enciclopedia dell'arte antica, classica e orientale, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana (1989–96)
- Member of the Scientific Board of Annali dell'Istituto Orientale from 1993 to 1997
- Editor of Annali dell'Istituto Orientale di Napoli from 1998 to 2001
- President of the Centre of Buddhist Studies, Università "L'Orientale" from 2002 to 2004
- Member of the Nucleo di Valutazione Interno, Università "L'Orientale" from 2002 to 2006.