The Bibliotheca Indica series was started in 1996 with the publication of Luigi Pio Tessitori's Opere giovanili (Early Works). These formed the first volume of his Opera omnia: a collection of translations from Indian texts - poetry and narrative - made before 1914, when he left for India on the eve of the First World War. He was then a very young, but already accomplished, scholar. A natural link can be easily traced between those published translations and the proceedings of the International Conference Tessitori and Rajasthan now issued in print, that shed light on the cultural milieu and the intellectual framework within which Tessitori was soon to become one of the greatest orientalists of all time.
Following a suggestion by Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli on 14 December 1995 in the Sala del Cenacolo of the Chamber of Deputies in Rome, the Società Indologica is undertaking a census both of Tessitori’s manuscripts kept at the "Vincenzo Joppi" Civic Library in Udine and of his private papers, including photographic plates, held by his heirs at Reana del Rojale. The catalogues of such outstanding material will be published in this series along with the results of the interlinking research projects.