Giovanni Luzzi (1856-1948), scholar
Giovanni Luzzi (1856-1948) was an Swiss Italian scholar.
Biography
Biblical scholar. Giovanni Luzzi was born at Tschlin (Switzerland), but grew up at Lucca, Italy. In Florence, attended the Waldensian Theological Seminary and learned Hebrew with David Castelli. After some additional years of study at Edinburgh, Scotland, went back to Florence, where in 1902 became Professor at the Waldensian Theological Seminary and began his monumental work of translating the Bible from the original texts. Luzzi befriended the leaders of the modernist Catholic movement, Ernesto Buonaiuti, Brizio Casciola, Romolo Murri, Giovanni Semeria, Umberto Fracassini, and others. He also maintained close relationship with international scholarship and in 1911-12 visited the United Studies, lecturing at Princeton, Harvard, New York and Washington. When the Waldensian Faculty moved to Rome in 1920, after only a couple of year preferred to leave the teaching and serve instead as a pastor at Poschiavo, Scwitzerland. In 1930 went back to Florence and during World War II, again to Poschiavo, where he would eventually die in 1948.