Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli (1911 – 2010) was an Italian historian and academic, one of the leading scholars of antiquity. A multifaceted intellectual and one of the greatest scholars and historians of the ancient world that Italy has ever had. With the contribution of his colleagues and friends, animated by the purpose of nurturing the memory of the land of origin among the Italians who emigrated to America, he was one of the founding members of the Magna Graecia International Association, which was then chaired by Gino Gullace, journalist of the Rizzoli Corporation and correspondent from New York.

Pugliese Carratelli was born in Naples but his family roots were Calabrian. His father was born in Pizzo to a family originally from Pianopoli-Feroleto.

He was a great intellectual who, despite not being physically born in Calabria, loved it very much and researched its ancient historical and cultural roots, bringing light to the Magna Graecia era, which reached the highest levels of its civilization in Calabria.

He lived his early life in the Naples of Benedetto Croce and Adolfo Omodeo, whom he befriended, and from that cultural environment he received important stimuli for his education.

In 1946, together with Gaetano Macchiaroli, a tenacious and rigorous publisher committed to social and political issues, he founded the prestigious journal of ancient studies "La Parola del Passato" (a title inspired by Thus Spoke Zarathustra by philosopher Nietzsche), which he directed with utmost dedication until the end of his days. He was one of the scholars who collaborated in deciphering the Minoan texts "in Linear A" and the Mycenaean onea in "Linear B" of which he became an important exegete, publishing them, the same year, in the series "Monumenti antichi dei Lincei" and inaugurating a successful season of research on the relations between the Mycenaeans and Italy.

After becoming professor, he taught Greek and Roman History at the State University of Pisa (1950-1954); History of Ancient Anterior Asia and then Greek and Roman History at the University of Florence (1954-1964); Greek History at the University of Rome "La Sapienza" (until 1974), concluding his teaching activity as professor of History of Greek Historiography at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, of which he was also director.

He became interested in the Hittite civilization and the Indian world of the era following Alexander the Great's exploits.

One of the fundamental themes addressed by Pugliese Carratelli was the Greekness of the West. Gianfranco Maddoli, his pupil in Florence, pointed out:

"the wide array of scientific interests that guided his constant research: from the ancient Orient to Greece, to Rome, to the fecundity of the classical world in Renaissance Humanism; from ancient languages and texts to political, philosophical and religious thought; from Thucydides to Plato to Orphism, from the history of Magna Graecia to that of the Italic peoples within a broad unitary vision of the Mediterranean, open to the impulses and legacies of the Near East."

In the first post-war decade, the Ministry of Education decided to reconstitute the “Deputazione di Storia Patria” for Calabria, entrusting the realization of the project to him, who was the first extraordinary commissioner and promoted the first founding meeting on September 16, 1954, in Cosenza, during the 1st Calabrian Historical Congress.

In 1960, succeeding Federico Chabod, he took over the direction of the Italian Institute for Historical Studies, founded by Benedetto Croce in 1946, which he held until 1986. He was a member of the Accademia dei Lincei, the Accademia Pontaniana in Naples, the Accademia La Colombaria in Florence, the Academy of Athens, the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies and the German Archaeological Institute; he was president of the Faina Foundation of Orvieto and a member of the National Society of Sciences, Letters and Arts.

From 1961, he collaborated for many years in the activities of the Institute for the History and Archaeology of Magna Graecia, to which we owe the annual conferences of Magna Graecia studies in Taranto, in which he played a central role. He was also a member of the Council of the Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia, directing the Encyclopedia of Classical and Oriental Art since 1975.

Well aware that historical research can have no boundaries, he also addressed issues related to the Risorgimento history and recent Neapolitan history, together with current cultural perspectives. His school has trained generations of Italian scholars and university professors of Greek History and History of the Ancient Near East, as well as officials in public institutions at various levels, such as the National Research Council (C.N.R.) and archaeological superintendence. He kept studying and encouraging young generations until the end.

He founded two other important scientific journals: Classical and Oriental Studies and Mycenaean and Aegean Anatolian Studies.

In 1975, together with the lawyer Gerardo Marotta and Elena Croce (the philosopher's daughter), he founded the Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies, thus becoming the guide and inspirer of the two great Neapolitan institutes, of international standing, in the field of historical and philosophical research.

A promoter of culture, he edited numerous collections of studies aimed at the general public, including the great Antica Madre series published by Scheiwiller with the contribution of Credito Italiano, the Magna Grecia volumes for Electa editions and the great Venetian exhibition at Palazzo Grassi on The Greeks in the West in 1996.

He died in Rome, at the age of 99, and was cremated in a private ceremony at the Verano Cemetery. "With him goes the last of the great Italians," Gerardo Marotta, president of the Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies, of which Pugliese Carratelli had also been director, declared upon hearing the news of his death. Naples remembered him by naming the Library of the Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies after him; Taranto, the city of conferences on Magna Graecia, has named a street after him.

In November 2011, the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei commemorated him during an important conference entitled "Antiquorum philosophia. In memory of Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli", which was attended by the most prestigious antiquity scholars from Italian universities.