Stefano Zacchetti was one of the most important Chinese Buddhist philologists. This article briefly retraces his academic career and major contributions. In his early years, he studied Sanskrit and Chinese in the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the Leiden University in Netherlands. During this time, he acquired a solid foundation in philology and Buddhist Studies and commenced his lifelong commitment to the multi-lingual study of the Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra. His doctoral study of the Guangzan jing 光讚經 (In Praise of Light) established him as an authority in the field of the Prajñāpāramitā literature. From 2001 to 2005, he worked in the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at the Soka University. At Soka, Zacchetti formed, together with Seishi Karashima 辛嶋靜志 (1957–2019) and Jan Nattier, a research team on the Chinese Buddhist translations, in addition to participating in a research project on Japanese manuscripts. During this time, and after he returned to the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Zacchetti continued making breakthroughs in the study of the translations by An Shigao 安世高 (148–180). From 2011 to 2012, Zacchetti was a visiting scholar at the University of California in Berkeley. In 2012, he was appointed the Yehan Numata Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Oxford and dedicated himself to the English translation and research of the Da zhidu lun 大智度論 (Skt.*Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa; The Treatise on the Great Prajñāpāramitā). In the subsequent eight years, he nearly completed his introduction to the Da zhidu lun and has, moreover, had numerous important publications, all of which are briefly introduced in this article. Zacchetti’s research is marked by his solid language skills, including his knowledge of numerous languages, and by his grasp of the latest trends in the Buddhist philology. His passing is a tremendous loss to the global community of Chinese Buddhist Studies. It also halted the enterprise—which had commenced more than a decade earlier—of producing the English translation of the Da zhidu lun.
