Trieste
Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into pr ...
– 29 September 2010,
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus ( legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
) was an Italian scholar of Himalayan history and the early relations between
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
,
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is ma ...
and
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
. He was Chair of History of Eastern Asia at the University of Rome from 1955 to 1984. He was a student of the Italian explorer, academic, and scholar
Giuseppe Tucci
Giuseppe Tucci (; 5 June 1894 – 5 April 1984) was an Italian orientalist, Indologist and scholar of East Asian studies, specializing in Tibetan culture and the history of Buddhism. During its zenith, Tucci was a supporter of Italian fasc ...
.
Luciano Petech was born in 1914 and retired in 1984. He learned several European languages, including
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
, as well as Asian languages such as
Tibetan
Tibetan may mean:
* of, from, or related to Tibet
* Tibetan people, an ethnic group
* Tibetan language:
** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard
** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...
,
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
,
Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
University of Allahabad
, mottoeng = "As Many Branches So Many Trees"
, established =
, type = Public
, chancellor = Ashish Chauhan
, vice_chancellor = Sangita Srivastava
, head_label ...
from 1938 to 1946. His first recorded article is for the '' Calcutta Review'' in 1939. His subject was the dramas and stories of the great Italian author
Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello (; 28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his almost magical power ...
, who had recently died two years after being awarded the
Nobel Prize in Literature
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, caption =
, awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature
, presenter = Swedish Academy
, holder = Annie Ernaux (2022)
, location = Stockholm, Sweden
, year = 1901
, ...
. He says “the people” in Italy had unfairly turned their backs on the intellectual Pirandello as unrepresentative of the times (Petech 1939: 13) and as not speaking to their hearts (idem: 24).
With the outbreak of World War II, as an Italian enemy alien in British India, Petech spent most of that time in a civil
internment
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simp ...
camp. Petech used this time to study
Tibetan literature Tibetan literature generally refers to literature written in the Tibetan language or arising out of Tibetan culture. Historically, Tibetan has served as a trans-regional literary language that has been used, at different times, from Tibet to Mongoli ...
and write an article on the chronological system of the 15th-century Blue Annals of Tibet. Unlike Tucci, a staunch collaborator with the Fascist regime, Petech was apolitical.
Petech returned to Europe in 1947,to temporary teaching appointments at the Istituto Orientale of Naples and University of Rome. For the next 8 years, he wrote 30 pieces of varying length on Asia, always focused on the meeting of different cultures from Asia or Europe, in areas bordering India.
From 1955 to 1984, he held the chair of History of Eastern Asia in Rome University, publishing 14 books and over 80 articles on Asia. At the end of this period, the foreword to the anthology of his selected articles, made to mark his retirement, praised his ‘objective, calm and sensible judgment, his willingness to cooperate, and his learning’ (Petech 1988: viii).
These traits are evident in his many works. In his books on Ladakh, Nepal and Tibet from medieval to modern times, his approach has the outward appearance of “history”—unimpeded by philosophy or superstition—unlocked through a serious and critical engagement with historical sources that are described before any of the events described in them.
In his magisterial seven volume ''‘I Missionari Italiani nel Tibet e nel Nepal'', Petech made available a mine of contemporary missionary accounts which are still invaluable source materials.
Petech’s monographs attempt to bring Himalayan history into the light of world history. This aim was always to be appreciated, and, as Herbert Franke noted in 1950 when Petech published “China and Tibet in the early 18th century”,
It may be considered as a fortunate coincidence... just now when the Chinese government tries to establish again its
suzerainty
Suzerainty () is the rights and obligations of a person, state or other polity who controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy. While the subordinate party is ca ...
over the land of snow because it will enable the reader to get a clear notion how the Chinese protectorate in Tibet came into being. (Franke 1950)
These are sentiments with which many would thoroughly agree. However, Petech’s early attempts also tend to subsume unique events within western explanatory frameworks. In 1947 he wrote:
As to
Ladakh
Ladakh () is a region administered by India as a union territory which constitutes a part of the larger Kashmir region and has been the subject of dispute between India, Pakistan, and China since 1947. (subscription required) Quote: "Jammu a ...
, there is little to be said. It suffered the fate of all countries which tried to build an empire without that indispensable foundation, a sufficiently large population of the home country. (1988
947
Year 947 ( CMXLVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* Summer – A Hungarian army led by Grand Prince Taksony campaigns in Italy, heading ...
39)
This attempt to universalise the process of empire-building also has politically loaded connotations in a time when Italy had just failed to regain the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...
, thwarted by the dwindling imperial powers of Britain and France and the new empire, America.
When he returned to the topic of
Ladakh
Ladakh () is a region administered by India as a union territory which constitutes a part of the larger Kashmir region and has been the subject of dispute between India, Pakistan, and China since 1947. (subscription required) Quote: "Jammu a ...
in 1977, he admitted that ‘I found my first effort hopelessly obsolete’ (1977: xi). His second treatment is more nuanced, and he finally explains the collapse of Ladakhi power with more of an emphasis on economic overstretch (idem: 79).
''Central Tibet and the Mongols'', Petech’s latest book-length study, is a more fluidly written narrative, character-led and more descriptive in tone. It is still authoritative, and has naturally overtaken Tucci’s work on the same period. As
Elliot Sperling
Elliot Sperling (January 4, 1951 – January 29, 2017) was one of the world's leading historians of Tibet and Tibetan-Chinese relations, and a MacArthur Fellow. He spent most of his scholarly career as an associate professor at Indiana University ...
wrote in his 1995 review:
...since the 1949 publication of Giuseppe Tucci’s Tibetan Painted scrolls nd inthe absence of any single monograph dedicated to the public, this last work was often taken by default as the main secondary source on the subject....
hile
Hile ( ne, हिले) is a hill town located in the Eastern Part of Nepal, 13 km north of the regional center of Dhankuta Bazar. At an elevation of 1948 meters, it is the main route to other hilly districts like Bhojpur and Sankhuwasa ...
“Central Tibet and the Mongols” is a relatively short work and leaves a few subjects less than fully explored... tis now the basic secondary source to which students of Yuan-Tibetan relations must turn. (''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' 115.2 (1995): 342–3)
Petech has several students, including Elena De Rossi Filibeck in Tibetan studies.
Luciano Petech died in his home on 19 September 2010.
References
Further reading
*Luciano Petech. 1988. ''Selected Papers on Asian History.'' Roma: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente. pp. xi–xviii.