DE LORENZO, Giuseppe Giovanni Angelo. Lagonegro, Potenza 24.4.1871 — Naples 27.6.1957. Italian Scientist and Bauddha. Professor of Geology in Naples. Born in Southern Italy, son of Lorenzo De L. and Carolina Rinaldi. After studies at Naples became in 1897 PD and 1905 Professor of Geology and Physical Geography there. Retired 1941. He was a notable scientist, who found the glacial moraines near Lagonegro and Trias areas of the Lucanian Mountains and carried research on the Etna and Vesuvius. Senator 1913.
As a friend of —> K. E. Neumann De Lorenzo became engaged with Buddhism after having been already interested in Indian thinking and Schopenhauer. Now learned some Sanskrit and Pāli. As an Indologist he was an admiring dilettant without critical scholarship, but his importance as a transmitter of Indian civilization in Italy was considerable. As a Buddhist he kept strictly in Theravāda. He was further an expert of Shakespeare and Dante.
Publications: More than one hundred books and articles on science.
– Translated into Italian Schopenhauer’s Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung with P. Savj-Lopez as Il mondo come volontà e rappresentazione. 1914, 3rd ed. 1-2. Bari 1928-30; Catechismo Buddhistico di Subhadra Bhikshu. Naples 1897; I Discorsi di Gotamo Buddho del Majjhimanikayo. 1-3. 16+511, 27+547, 16+442 p. Bari 1925-27 (from Neumann’s German).
– Transl. from Sanskrit: Bilhaṇa: Il Canto del Ladro d’Amore. 127 p. Naples 1927.
– India e Buddhismo Antico. Bari 1904, 2nd ed. 1911, 3rd ed. 548 p. Bari 1926.
– Morale buddhista. 60 p. Bologna 1920; Il sole del Gange. 228 p. Bologna 1925; Asoko. Naples 1926; Oriente e Occidente. 263 p. Bari 1931; Gli ultimi giorni di Gotamo Buddho. 102 p. Bari 1948; Religioni e filosofie dell’ Estremo Oriente. Naples 1948; Scienza d’Occidente e sapienza d’Oriente. Naples 1953.
– La Terra Madre. Turin 1907; La Terra e l’Uomo. 12+341 p. Naples 1912, 5th ed. Rome 1947; Italae vires. 12+206 p. Naples 1916; Shakespeare e il dolore del mondo. 408 p. Bologna 1921; Leopardi e Schopenhauer. 54 p. Naples 1923; Giordano Bruno, l’eroe del pensiero italiano.51 p. Naples 1932.
– Articles on Indian thought, etc., in E&W, etc.
Sources: Br. Accordi in www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giuseppe-de-lorenzo_(Dizionario-Biografico)/; C. Della Casa, “Il buddhismo secondo Giuseppe De Lorenzo”, Napoli e India 1990, 67-83 (with further references); R. Gnoli, E&W 8, 1957, 274; Payer, Materialien 11 with photo (www.payer.de/neobuddhismus/neobud1101.htm); G. Pugliese Carratelli, La conoscenza dell’ Asia 2, 1985, 12-14 with photo; Italian Wikipedia with photo.
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