Raffaele Pettazzoni (3 February 1883, in San Giovanni in Persiceto – 8 December 1959, in Rome) was an Italian anthropologist, archaeologist, professor, and historian of religion.
[5] Among his students in Rome there were also Angelo Brelich and Dario Sabbatucci, two other major historians of religion that have founded the so-called "Roman School" (Scuola di Roma).
[4] The above-mentioned issue concerning the endorsement of the "Manifesto" is controversial, since Pettazzoni's signature does not appear on the racial document published first on July 15, 1938, anonymously.
[6] At a later time, on July 25, a circular letter from the National Fascist Party (PNF) revealed the names of ten scholars who had either authored or supported the propositions, among whom Pettazzoni is not included.
[6] This inquiry was conducted through self-declarations using questionnaires and information sheets submitted to the ministerial offices, including those from Pettazzoni at the Royal Academy of Italy.
[6] Following the end of World War II, he became a member of the national Accademia dei Lincei, President of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) in 1950, and editor-in-chief of the academic journal Numen.
His seven-hundred page work was the culmination of a lifetime of research that fundamentally challenged and undermined the speculative theories on the evolutionary origin of religions propounded by the Catholic priest Wilhelm Schmidt.