Carlo Formichi (14 February 1871 – 13 December 1943) was an
Italian linguist, Anglicist and orientalist, English and Sanskrit Scholar. He took a keen interest in Buddhism and Hindu philosophy.
Formichi was born in
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
and became interested in Sanskrit, studying from
Michele Kerbaker, even before he went to university. He however studied law, graduating in 1891 and then studied literature, receiving a degree in 1893. He taught at a gymnasium in the Calabria region and after receiving a scholarship he went to the
University of Kiel for oriental studies under
Paul Deussen
Paul Jakob Deussen (; 7 January 1845 – 6 July 1919) was a German Indologist and professor of philosophy at University of Kiel. Strongly influenced by Arthur Schopenhauer, Deussen was a friend of Friedrich Nietzsche and Swami Vivekananda. In 1 ...
and
Hermann Oldenberg. He attended orientalists' congresses at London (1892) and Paris (1897). Graduating in 1897 he returned to Naples where he taught Sanskrit philology and spent some time in Vienna and at Bologna under
J. G. Bühler. He joined the university of Pisa in 1898 and became a head in 1915 at the University of Rome where he dealt also in English literature. In the 1920s Kalidas Nag (son-in-law of
Ramananda Chatterjee
Ramananda Chatterjee ( bn, রামানন্দ চট্টোপাধ্যায়) (29 May 1865 – 30 September 1943) was founder, editor, and owner of the Calcutta based magazine, the '' Modern Review''. He has been described as th ...
) and
Sylvain Levi began to spread an interest in Indology in Europe. Nag was in touch with many Indologists including
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 fascism ...
and Formichi. Through Nag's influence 1925 Formichi was invited to
Vishwabharati University. This was the same period when
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...
was invited to Italy through the influence of Formichi. Tagore grew openly against Fascism while Formichi was a staunch supporter of
Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
. After Tagore made many public statements against fascism, Formichi was forced to write a book explaining his position ''India e Indiani''. Formichi visited Egypt in 1928 and Berkeley in 1929. He took an interest in Indian and Buddhist philosophy, and translated several works including the Asvaghosa into Italian. He retired in 1941. He was professor of
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
at the
University of Pisa and, from 1914, at the
University of Rome.
Works
* ''Salus Populi'' (Welfare of the People) (Turin 1908)
*
Açvaghoṣa, poeta del Buddhismo (1912)
* ''Pensiero e azione nell' India antica'' (Thought and Action in Ancient India) (''Rivista Italiana di Sociologia'' March-April 1914) - A Lecture delivered in 1914 at the
University of Rome(''
Raghuvaṃśa
(Devanagari: , lit. 'lineage of Raghu') is a Sanskrit epic poem (''mahakavya'') by the celebrated Sanskrit poet Kalidasa. Though an exact date of composition is unknown, the poet is presumed to have flourished in the 5th century CE. It narrat ...
'', The Race of Raghu) (
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
, 1917)
* Il penseroso religioso nell' India prima del Buddha (1926)
* I viaggi di Gulliver (
Gulliver's Travels
''Gulliver's Travels'', or ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships'' is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan ...
) (
Mondadori, 1933)
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Formichi, Carlo
1871 births
1943 deaths
19th-century Neapolitan people
Italian Indologists
Linguists from Italy
Academic staff of the University of Pisa
Academic staff of the University of Rome Tor Vergata