Giovanni Verardi

Who is Giovanni Verardi?

Giovanni Verardi has been a professor at the Università L’Orientale of Naples, Italy, where he has been teaching Art and Archaeology of Central Asia and Art and Archaeology of India. He has been Maître de Conférences at the Collège de France in Paris, guest professor at the University of Kyoto, and visiting professor in Japan.

As early as 1970 he joined the Italian Archaeological Mission to Afghanistan, where he started his work as field archaeologist at the Buddhist site of Tapa Sardar near Ghazni, in whose territory he carried out extensive surveys that led to the discovery of several groups of Buddhist rock-cut monasteries.

In 1981 he joined the Italian Archaeological Mission to Nepal, of which he became director in 1988. Research work was first carried out at the site of Harigaon in Kathmandu and after at the Aśokan site of Gotihawa in the Tarai, c. 25 km west of Lumbini.