Giuseppe Levi (14 October 1872 – 3 February 1965) was an Italian
anatomist
Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...
and
histologist, professor of
human anatomy
Human anatomy (gr. ἀνατομία, "dissection", from ἀνά, "up", and τέμνειν, "cut") is primarily the scientific study of the morphology of the human body. Anatomy is subdivided into gross anatomy and microscopic anatomy. Gross ...
(since 1916) at the universities of
Sassari
Sassari ( ; ; ; ) is an Italian city and the second-largest of Sardinia in terms of population with 120,497 inhabitants as of 2025, and a functional urban area of about 260,000 inhabitants. One of the oldest cities on the island, it contains ...
,
Palermo
Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...
and
Turin
Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
. He was born on 14 October 1872 in
Trieste
Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the Province of Trieste, ...
to Jewish parents, Michele Levi and Emma Perugia.
He was married to Lidia Tanzi and had five children: Gino, Mario, Alberto, Paola (who became the wife of
Adriano Olivetti
Adriano Olivetti (11 April 1901 – 27 February 1960) was an Italian engineer, entrepreneur, politician, and industrialist. He was known worldwide during his lifetime as the Italian manufacturer of Olivetti brand typewriters, calculators, and com ...
), and writer
Natalia Ginzburg
Natalia Ginzburg (, ; ; 14 July 1916 – 7 October 1991) was an Italian author whose work explored family relationships, politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II, and philosophy. She wrote novels, short stories and essays, f ...
(wife of
Leone Ginzburg
Leone Ginzburg (, ; 4 April 1909 – 5 February 1944) was an Italian editor, writer, journalist and teacher, as well as an important anti-fascist political activist and a hero of the resistance movement. He was the husband of the renowned author ...
and mother of
Carlo Ginzburg
Carlo Ginzburg (; born 15 April 1939) is an Italian historian and a proponent of the field of microhistory. He is best known for ''Il formaggio e i vermi'' (1976, English title: '' The Cheese and the Worms''), which examined the beliefs of an I ...
),
who described her father's personality in the successful Italian book ''
Lessico famigliare'' (1963).
Levi was a pioneer of ''in vitro'' studies of cultured cells. He contributed to the study of the nervous system, especially on the plasticity of sensory ganglion cells.
While in Turin, he tutored three students who later won the
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...
:
Salvador Luria
Salvador Edward Luria (; ; born Salvatore Luria; August 13, 1912 – February 6, 1991) was an Italian microbiologist, later a Naturalized citizen of the United States#Naturalization, naturalized U.S. citizen. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology ...
,
Renato Dulbecco
Renato Dulbecco ( , ; February 22, 1914 – February 19, 2012) was an Italian–American virologist who won the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on oncoviruses, which are viruses that can cause cancer when they infect anim ...
and
Rita Levi-Montalcini
Rita Levi-Montalcini ( , ; 22 April 1909 – 30 December 2012) was an Italian neurobiologist. She was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with colleague Stanley Cohen for the discovery of nerve growth factor ( ...
.
He was admitted as a national member of the
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei
The (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed"), anglicised as the Lincean Academy, is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy. Founded in ...
in 1926.
In 1931 he subscribed to the oath of allegiance to the Fascist regime imposed to University professors.
References
Bibliography
* Andrea Grignolio (ed.)
''Giuseppe Levi'', «Medicina nei secoli» (Special issue: articles in Italian or in English), 2018, Vol. 30, n. 1, pp. 9-445
External sources
English translation via Google Translate
{{DEFAULTSORT:Levi, Giuseppe
1872 births
1965 deaths
20th-century Italian Jews
Italian anatomists
Jewish physicians
Histologists
Levites
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
Physicians from Trieste