Luigi Pio Tessitori

Luigi Pio Tessitori (13 December 1887, Udine – 22 November 1919, Bikaner) was an Italian Indologist and linguist.

Tessitori was born in the north-eastern Italian town of Udine on 13 December 1887, to Guido Tessitori, a worker at the Foundling Hospital, and Luigia Rosa Venier Romano. He studied at the Liceo Classico Jacopo Stellini before going on to university. He studied at the University of Florence, obtaining his degree in the humanities in 1910. He is said to have been a quiet student, and when he took up the study of Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit, his classmates gave him a nickname Indian Louis.

Having developed an abiding interest in north Indian vernacular languages, Tessitori tried hard to obtain an appointment in Rajasthan. He applied in 1913 to the India Office; realising that there was no guarantee of a job offer, he also approached Indian princes who might employ him for linguistic work. Around this time, he established contact with a Jain teacher, Vijaya Dharma Suri (1868-1923) with whom he was to have a close personal and professional relationship. Suri was known for his deep knowledge of Jain literature, and was instrumental in the retrieval and preservation of many of its works. Tessitori appealed to him for criticism of his exegeses on Jain literature and practises. Suri offered him a position at a Jain school in Rajasthan, but while negotiating the delicate position of a Christian living in a Jain community, Tessitori received approval for his application from the India Office, and made preparations to head to India in 1914.

In India, Tessitori involved himself with both its Linguistic Survey and the Archaeological Survey, and made discoveries of fundamental importance to Indology.

In 1919, he received news that his mother was seriously ill, and he left for Italy on 17 April. By the time he arrived, she was dead. He stayed in Italy for several months before returning to India in November. Unfortunately, he appears to have contracted Spanish influenza on board his ship, and fell seriously ill. He died on 22 November 1919 in Bikaner.

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