Full professor of “Archaeology and History of Islamic Art” at the University of Udine. He gave courses of Islamic art also in the universities of Venice, Florence and Milano (Università Cattolica). A traveler and connoisseur through middle eastern lands as an archaeologist and historian of Islamic art, he is a well-known scholar with a deeply rooted international fame. He wrote about 150 books and articles published all over the world. He organized and edited catalogues of several exhibitions concerning Islamic culture in Italy and abroad. The last exhibition he has supervised was: “Islamic Art and Florence from the Medici to the 20th Century” at the Uffizi Gallery and the National Museum Bargello in Florence in 2018.