He graduated in 1937 from the University of Rome, where Prof. Michelangelo Guidi, acted as advisor on a thesis on the Umayyad poet, Abū Miḥǧan Nuṣayb b. Rabāḥ (أبو محجن نصيب بن رباح),[2] on which he gave a report to the XX International Congress of Orientalists (Brussels, 5–10 September 1938).

At the same time, his statement on the "Return of the teaching of the Arabic language and literature to the University of Palermo" outlined a budget and an operational project aimed at encouraging participation by the younger generation.

In 1965 he published for the Institute for the Orient the masterpiece of Ṭāhā Ḥuseyn, al-Ayyām (‘The Days’) and between 1975 and 1977 he participated in the first world edition of the manuscript of the geographical work of al-Idrisi sponsored by the Università degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale" of Naples and by the Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente of Rome and updated the Biblioteca arabo-sicula by Michele Amari, in view of the National Edition of the works of the great Sicilian scholar.

Rizzitano's attention to the issue of dialogue between religions and cultures led him, at the express invitation of the Arab Republic of Libya, to participate, as an Italian observer, in the Islamic-Christian colloquium held in Tripoli from 1 to 5 February 1975.

[4] and confirms the fact that the continuous search for common historical, linguistic and literary roots had as its engine the demonstration of "a possibility of coexistence of men of different race and religion".