Giancarlo Ligabue (30 October 1931 – 25 January 2015) was an Italian paleontologist, scholar, politician and businessman.
Born in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
, Ligabue graduated in Economics at the
Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Ca' Foscari University of Venice ( it, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, simply Università Ca' Foscari) is a public university in Venice, Italy. Since its foundation in 1868, it has been housed in the Venetian Gothic palace of Ca' Foscari, from ...
and in Geology at
la Sorbonne
, image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of Arms
, latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis
, motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin)
, mottoeng = Here and a ...
, and later he also received five honorary degrees from the universities of
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...
, Venice,
Modena,
Lima
Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of ...
and
Ashgabat
Ashgabat or Asgabat ( tk, Aşgabat, ; fa, عشقآباد, translit='Ešqābād, formerly named Poltoratsk ( rus, Полтора́цк, p=pəltɐˈratsk) between 1919 and 1927), is the capital and the largest city of Turkmenistan. It lie ...
.
He participated or directed over 130 expeditions around the world, and he made several paleontological discoveries, such as the ''
Ligabueino
''Ligabueino'' (meaning "Ligabue's little one") is a genus of noasaurid dinosaur named after its discoverer, Italian doctor Giancarlo Ligabue. It is known only from an extremely fragmentary specimen, measuring 79 cm (2.6 ft) long, foun ...
'', a
noasaurid dinosaur named after him, and such as the unearthed deposits of hominid and dinosaurs fossils in the
Ténéré
The Ténéré ( Tuareg: Tenere, literally: "desert") is a desert region in the south central Sahara. It comprises a vast plain of sand stretching from northeastern Niger into western Chad, occupying an area of over . The Ténéré's boundaries ...
desert.
He collaborated with
Piero Angela
Piero Domenico Angela (; 22 December 1928 – 13 August 2022) was an Italian television host, science journalist, writer, and pianist.
He started as a radio reporter, then became a foreign correspondent, and established himself as the host of ...
to several science documentaries.
He was president of the Natural History Museum of Venice and founder of the Ligabue Study and Research Centre in Venice.
Ligabue was also businessman in the field of supplies and services for ships.
[ He was the president of the basketball team ]Reyer Venezia Mestre
S.S.P. Reyer Venezia Mestre, commonly known as Reyer Venezia or simply Reyer, is an Italian professional basketball club that is based in Venice, Veneto. The club currently plays in the Lega Basket Serie A (LBA), the highest tier of basketball in ...
between the early sixties and early eighties.[ He was also a member of the ]European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
for Forza Italia within the Forza Europa
Forza Europa was a centre-right political group with seats in the European Parliament between 1994 and 1995.
History
27 MEPs from the Italian centre-right party Forza Italia, along with MEPs of the Christian Democratic Centre and the Union of ...
group between 1994 and 1999.
References
1931 births
2015 deaths
Writers from Venice
Italian paleontologists
MEPs for Italy 1994–1999
Forza Italia MEPs
Businesspeople from Venice
Ca' Foscari University of Venice alumni
University of Paris alumni
Politicians from Venice
{{Italy-MEP-stub