Giuseppe Tucci (1895 - 1984)

The Italian Government under Mussolini sent two Italian scholars, Carlo Formichi and Giuseppe Tucci, to Santiniketan and also made a handsome gift of Italian classics to the Visva-Bharati library. Formichi joined Visva-Bharati in November 1925 and Tucci joined shortly.

Tucci, an Indologist, specializing in Buddhism, taught at the University of Rome. Besides being fluent in a number of European languages, Tucci knew Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit, Chinese and Tibetan. In Santiniketan he taught Italian and Chinese languages and it was Tucci who started the reading of various Buddhist text in Chinese and research in Buddhist texts. He helped Vidhusekhara Bhattacharya with his research and with the editing of various books.

Of the education system in Visva-Bharati he said, "Freedom and ananda are the two fundamental principles of the educational ideal of Tagore: That is what he has put into practice in Visva-Bharati, where the student is living his own life, not only in contact with books, but also with his own soul, and with Nature, - a nature infinitely serene as it is in Santiniketan, divinely eloquent in the solitude which inspired the meditation of the Maharshi."

In 1961 Visva-Bharati conferred on him the Desikottama, its highest award.