Unpublished documents

Tessitori's private archive, kept by his heirs at Reana del Rojale, and the numerous manuscripts and printed books, held by the «Vincenzo Joppi» Municipal Library in Udine, bear today witness to his short-lived but intense research efforts.

The collection at the «Vincenzo Joppi» Municipal Library, known as Fondo Tessitori, is a heritage of immense interest to all branches of Indological studies. The collection, donated in 1923, comprises 225 manuscripts, in Sanskrit, Prakrits, Apabhraṃśa and Old Mārwāṛī, acquired by Luigi Pio Tessitori in Rajasthan from 1914 to 1919.  Of these documents, MS. 4510 deserves a special mention. Written in Sanskrit and illuminated with miniatures in the Rajput style, the manuscript recounts the Devī-Māhātmya, an episode from the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa. 

Today all the unpublished documents of the Italian indologist are kept at Reana del Rojale, a small village near Udine, in the residence of Dr. Guido Peano, Tessitori’s nephew. Over the past two years, the archive, known as the Archivio Peano, has been sorted and arranged into seven sections, each organized in chronological order: I: Florentine period; II: Drafts of published works; III: Documents from the Bardic and Historical Survey of Rajputana; IV: Diary; V: Correspondence; VI: Photographic plates; VII: Unpublished works. 

• Section I
• Section II
• Section III
• Section IV
• Section V
• Section VI
• Section VII