Giuseppe Levi

Who is Giuseppe Levi?

Giuseppe Levi was an Italian anatomist and histologist, professor of human anatomy at the universities of Sassari, Palermo and Turin. He was born on October 14, 1872 in Trieste to a Jewish family, Michele Levi and Emma Perugia. He was married to Lidia Tanzi and had five children: Gino, Mario, Alberto, Paola, and writer Natalia Ginzburg, who described her father's personality in the successful Italian book Lessico famigliare.

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 that later became renowned scientists awarded with Nobel prize: Salvador Luria, Renato Dulbecco and Rita Levi-Montalcini.

He was admitted as a national member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in 1926.