Discover Your Passion

I was born in Northern Italy in 1929. I grew up near the Alps where I discovered fossils and minerals and developed a lifelong interest in the study and classification of these fascinating and beautiful objects. This interest led me to study Geology at the University of Milan which in turn led to a career as a micoplantologist consulting for oil companies exploring for oil. Throughout my long professional career in micro-paleontology he also developed a keen interest in Oriental Art during my extensive travels. Life in the world of stratigraphic consulting was good in the sixties and seventies with expansion into Egypt and eventually Singapore in the early eighties and China soon after. I eventually settled in a modest dwelling in Siam Reap in 1995 to develop my final specialty: the Art of the Khmer. I started with the study of the reliefs of Angkor Wat and other important Khmer temples. This inevitably led me to study the Buddhist art of Cambodia. The fruit of these labors was the first publication on this subject in Cambodian history. During the pursuit of these studies my deteriorating health brought me to Bangkok where I eventually became wheelchair bound. While this severely restricted my travels and personal investigations of temples and Buddhist sites, it did not stop me from continuing to further my studies. During this difficult time, I studied mostly alone with few collaborators. My deep interest in images as conveyors of meaning inspired me to undertake a broader study of the illustration of the Last Ten Jataka of continental Southeastern Asia, or Mahanipata. This study will now be available on the internet in unedited form to hopefully inspire others to develop the subject further. As the author of several publications on Cambodian visual narrative, I deeply regret not having been able to personally study more of the architecture of the actual monuments containing such important works of art.