Mauro Cristofani (1941 in Rome, Italy – 1997) was a linguist and researcher in Etruscan studies.

Biography

Cristofani was a student of Massimo Pallottino and would himself teach at the University of Pisa, University of Siena and, his final post, at the University of Naples Federico II. He was a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and was held in high regard as Pallottino's scholarly heir. During his thirty-year career he dominated the fields of Etruscan archaeology and, especially, epigraphy. He directed the Istituto per l'Archeologia Etrusco-Italica of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and was president of the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Etruschi ed Italici in Florence.

His fieldwork included investigations at Volterra, Populonia, and Cerveteri. In Italy the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche established the “Centro per l'archeologia etrusco-italica” in 1978, under the direction of Massimo Pallottino. In 1982, Cristofani (a student of Pallottino) became the director of the Center, which in 1990 became the Institute for Etruscan-Italic Archaeology.

In 2001 Cristofani's career was honored by the presentation of 3 volumes that compiled articles he published between 1966 and 1997 under the title Scripta Selecta: trenta anni di studi archeologici sull'Italia preromana, edited by Antonio Giuliano, Salvatore Settis, and Fausto Zevi.