Silvio Vita leads an enviable life. He says perhaps he is lucky. That may be true, but it is not the whole story. He is also hardworking, and his work has done more than luck to bring him recognition and reward. He is a Roman, born in Romulus' fabulous city, which, built over seven hills by the Tiber River, became a great cultural center of the Western world. He divides his time, enviably, between Kyoto, city of temples and shrines and antiquities, and Naples, city of palaces, castles and churches set on a scenic bay. When, eventually, Vita goes back to his university position in Naples, he said, "I will always return to Japan."

He has the gift of friendliness. His early environment conditioned him with desire to learn, and to pass on learning. Both his parents were high school teachers of Italian literature and classical languages. Vita said: "When I was in high school I was interested in different cultures. The classical civilizations of Greece and Rome were very different from ours today. From that realization I became interested in China and Japan. Their different cultures were the most important driving force behind my decision to specialize in East Asian studies."

Vita took his first degree in classical literature at his university in Naples. In that same year, 1978, he secured a Ministry of Education scholarship to study at Kyoto University. He stayed on beyond the period of his scholarship, supporting himself by teaching Italian. He had a compelling reason for wanting to stay: romantically, on a beach on the Kii Peninsula, he had met the Japanese girl he was going to marry.

From Japan, Vita went to the Department of Religion, Princeton University, New Jersey, where he was an assistant instructor. Three years later, he received from Princeton his master's degree in East Asian religions.

"Then I had another year in Japan, on a scholarship from the Italian government," Vita reported. He became a tenured researcher in the university department of Oriental studies in his hometown of Rome. "But I had another year in Taipei, studying the Chinese language," Vita said. He compares with native speakers in his command of Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. As well as his own Italian, he has acquired mastery of English, French and German.

At one time he came to Waseda University in Tokyo on a Japan Foundation Fellowship. With his wife and children he has continued to come and go regularly between Europe and Japan. "I chose to come here almost every year in the summer," he said. "If you add it all up, at a rough calculation, I have spent 10 to 12 years in Japan. This is my second home."

Vita left Rome for Naples in 1992. He is associate professor of East Asian religions and philosophy in the university there. He kept faith with Rome by arranging the time to lecture on Chinese religion and intellectual history in that city's schools of Oriental languages and cultures. He reports that nowadays many students in Italy are keenly interested in Japanese studies. He is stimulated to teach them.

Two years ago Vita came to Kyoto, where he is director of the Italian School of East Asian Studies. His family stayed in Italy for the sake of his teenagers' high schooling, but the family reunites during school holidays. He is a member of several learned bodies, among then the International Association of Buddhist Studies, the Society for the Study of Chinese Religion and the T'ang Studies Society. He lists 20 works as his main publications. Among then are encyclopedia entries, and translated and edited materials. Much of his published work over the last 25 years has been concerned with Buddhism, the most recent under the title of "Images of Buddhism in Modern Japan: The Role of Academia."

Vita will speak on this subject at the meeting of the Asiatic Society of Japan on April 21 at 6:30 p.m. at Shibuya Kyoiku Gakuen. "The shaping of a modern society in Japan under Western influence since the Meiji period affected many intellectual fields," he said. "Buddhism was one of these. Buddhist intellectuals felt the need to provide an image or images of Buddhism which could stand up against many challenges. Buddhist studies in Japan developed in a new academic environment with new rules and sources of authority."