In memoriam: Professor Luciano Petech
Professor Luciano Petech, the distinguished Italian historian of Ladakh, passed away in Rome on 29 September, aged 96. Professor Petech began his studies on Ladakh in the 1930s. His Ph.D thesis, A Study on the Chronicles of Ladakh (Indian Tibet), was published in 1939, and focused on the La dvags rgyal rabs. He returned to the same topic in a series of articles published after the Second World War and, most notably, in his 1977 volume, The Kingdom of Ladakh C.950-1842 A.D. This book remains the single most important work of Western historical scholarship on Ladakh, providing a firm foundation on which subsequent scholars have been able to build.
Professor Petech was already very frail in 2007 when the IALS conference took place in Rome, and unable to take part in person. However, a group of us were able to visit him in his flat, and the first Rome conference volume Mountains, Monasteries and Mosques is dedicated to him. We are thankful for his long life and manifold contributions to Himalayan scholarship, and send our condolences to his family.