---
title: "List of Balzan Prize recipients"
chunk: 1/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Balzan_Prize_recipients"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:28:09.436892+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

This is a list of recipients of the Balzan Prize, one of the world's most prestigious academic awards. The International Balzan Prize Foundation awards four annual monetary prizes to people or organizations who have made outstanding achievements in the humanities, natural sciences, culture, and peace on an international level. The Prizes are awarded in four subject areas: "two in literature, the moral sciences and the arts" and "two in the physical, mathematical and natural sciences and medicine." The special Prize for Humanity, Peace and Fraternity is presented at intervals of every three years or longer.

== 1960s–1970s ==
1961
Nobel Foundation (Sweden) --- Humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples
1962
Andrey Kolmogorov (Soviet Union) --- Mathematics
Karl von Frisch (Austria) --- Biology
Paul Hindemith (Germany) --- Music
Samuel Eliot Morison (United States) --- History
Pope John XXIII (Vatican) --- Humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples
1978
Mother Teresa of Calcutta (India) --- Humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples
1979
Ernest Labrousse (France) and Giuseppe Tucci (Italy) --- History
Jean Piaget (Switzerland) --- Social and political sciences
Torbjörn Caspersson (Sweden) ---  Biology

== 1980s ==
1980
Enrico Bombieri (Italy) --- Mathematics
Hassan Fathy (Egypt) --- Architecture and town planning
Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina) --- Philology, linguistics and literary criticism
1981
Dan McKenzie (United Kingdom), Drummond Matthews (United Kingdom) and Frederick Vine (United Kingdom) --- Geology and geophysics
Josef Pieper (Germany) --- Philosophy
Paul Reuter (France) --- International public law
1982
Jean-Baptiste Duroselle (France) --- Social sciences
Kenneth Vivian Thimann (United Kingdom / United States) --- Pure and applied botany
Massimo Pallottino (Italy) --- Sciences of antiquity
1983
Edward Shils (United States) --- Sociology
Ernst Mayr (Germany / United States) --- Zoology
Francesco Gabrieli (Italy) --- Oriental studies
1984
Jan Hendrik Oort (Netherlands) --- Astrophysics
Jean Starobinski (Switzerland) --- History and criticism of the literatures
Sewall Wright (United States) --- Genetics
1985
Ernst H. J. Gombrich (Austria / United Kingdom) --- History of western art
Jean-Pierre Serre (France) --- Mathematics
1986
Jean Rivero (France) --- Basic human rights
Otto Neugebauer (Austria / United States) --- History of science
Roger Revelle (United States) --- Oceanography / climatology
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) --- Humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples
1987
Jerome Seymour Bruner (United States) --- Human psychology
Phillip V. Tobias (South Africa) --- Physical anthropology
Richard W. Southern (United Kingdom) --- Medieval history
1988
Michael Evenari (Israel) and Otto Ludwig Lange (Germany) --- Applied botany (incl. ecological aspects)
René Étiemble (France) --- Comparative literature
Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt (Israel) --- Sociology
1989
Emmanuel Lévinas (France / Lithuania) --- Philosophy
Leo Pardi (Italy) --- Ethologie
Martin John Rees (United Kingdom) --- High energy astrophysics

== 1990s ==
1990
James Freeman Gilbert (United States) --- Geophysics (solid earth)
Pierre Lalive d'Epinay (Switzerland) --- Private international law
Walter Burkert (Germany) --- Study of the ancient world (Mediterranean area)
1991
György Ligeti (Hungary / Austria) --- Music
John Maynard Smith (United Kingdom) --- Genetics and evolution
Vitorino Magalhães Godinho (Portugal) --- History: The emergence of Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries
Abbé Pierre (Henri Grouès) (France) --- Humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples
1992
Armand Borel (Switzerland) --- Mathematics
Ebrahim M. Samba (Gambia) --- Preventive medicine
Giovanni Macchia (Italy) --- History and criticism of the literatures
1993
Jean Leclant (France) --- Art and archaeology of the ancient world
Lothar Gall (Germany) --- History: societies of the 19th and 20th centuries
Wolfgang H. Berger (Germany / United States) --- Paleontology with special reference to oceanography
1994
Fred Hoyle (United Kingdom) and Martin Schwarzschild (Germany / United States) --- Astrophysics (evolution of stars)
Norberto Bobbio (Italy) --- Law and political science (governments and democracy)
René Couteaux (France) --- Biology (cell structure with special reference to the nervous system)
1995
Alan J. Heeger (United States) --- Science of new non-biological materials
Carlo M. Cipolla (Italy) --- Economic history
Yves Bonnefoy (France) --- Art history and art criticism (as applied to European art from the Middle Ages to our times)
1996
Arno Borst (Germany) --- History: medieval cultures
Arnt Eliassen (Norway) --- Meteorology
Stanley Hoffmann (Austria / United States / France) --- Political sciences: contemporary international relations
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) --- Humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples
1997
Charles Coulston Gillispie (United States) --- History and philosophy of science
Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah (Sri Lanka / United States) --- Social sciences: social anthropology
Thomas Wilson Meade (United Kingdom) --- Epidemiology
1998
Andrzej Walicki (Poland / United States) --- History: the cultural and social history of the Slavonic world from the reign of Catherine the Great to the Russian revolutions of 1917
Harmon Craig (United States) --- Geochemistry
Robert McCredie May (United Kingdom / Australia) --- Biodiversity
1999
John Elliott (United Kingdom) --- History 1500–1800
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza (Italy / United States) --- Science of human origins
Mikhail Gromov (Russia / France) --- Mathematics
Paul Ricœur (France) --- Philosophy