Giovanni Semerano

Who was Giovanni Semerano?

Giovanni Semerano was an Italian philologist and linguist who studied the languages of Ancient Mesopotamia.

He obtained his degree in Florence, where among his teachers were the Hellenist Ettore Bignone, the philologist Giorgio Pasquali, the semitist Giuseppe Furlani and the linguists Giacomo Devoto and Bruno Migliorini.

At the beginning of his career he taught Greek and Latin in a High School. In 1950 he was appointed Supervisor of Bibliography for the Veneto and in 1955 for Tuscany. He taught some lessons of Medieval Latin at the University of Florence in a School of Latin palaeography. Afterwards he was director of the Biblioteca Laurenziana and then of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of Florence. In 1967 he was honoured with the gold medal for culture merits. He was an honorary member of the Accademia Etrusca. He was also a member of the Oriental Institute of Chicago.