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