Lidio Cipriani
Lidio Cipriani (17 March 1892 8 October 1962) was an anthropologist, university teacher and explorer from Florence. Education and academia Cipriani first trained and worked as an elementary school teacher like his father. He then volunteered for the military and served in World War I. As of 1920 Cipriani studied Natural sciences and graduated in 1923, became docent of Anthropology at the University of Florence and Director of the Istituto e Museo Nazionale di Antropologia in the same university. In 1924 Cipriani was awarded the International Broca Prize of Paris for Anthropology. He distinguished himself by a long period of exploration and field work in several continents and among a large number of tribes and population of Africa, Southwest Asia and India. Research As an exponent of the anthropometric school, Cipriani was particularly interested in systematic measurements (cranial, but also of hands, feet, and all other kinds of body parts), and he was also fond of making plaster facial moulds made from life, for which he procured models among the populations he encountered. Cipriani's three journeys in Africa were documented by a large number of photographs and the chronicle was reported in his book In Africa dal Capo al Cairo