Giuseppe Tucci’s (1894-1984) documentary heritage: a “cultural archive”

The 57 maps used by Giuseppe Tucci for his Asian expeditions, today preserved in the “IsIAO Library” – African and Oriental Collections Room of the National Central Library of Rome, are to be considered a portion of the orientalist’s cultural legacy, part of a wide set of documentary resources strictly linked to his figure. It is necessary to emphasize the connection that exists between these different types of resources (bibliographic, archival, cartographic, but also photographic, video and museographic): a rich corpus currently conserved in different cultural institutions, such as li- braries, museums and archives. In light of this, the documentary heritage of a scholar as complex as Giuseppe Tucci can effectively represent what Luigi Crocetti eloquently called a “cultural archive”.