Arcangelo Scacchi

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Arcangelo Scacchi, July 26, 1890

Arcangelo Scacchi (born February 8, 1810 in Gravina di Puglia , † October 11, 1893 in Naples ) was an Italian geologist , mineralogist and volcanologist .

Life

Scacchi went to school in Bari and Gravina. In 1827 he began studying medicine in Naples and graduated in 1831. After graduation he dealt intensively with various scientific disciplines and became a student of Matteo Tondi (1762-1835) and Teodoro Monticelli (1759-1845), permanent secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Naples. Both introduced the young Scacchi to their mineral and fossil collections.

In September 1841 he was appointed assistant for the demonstration of objects at the chair of mineralogy of the Royal University of Naples and in 1844 he was finally appointed professor of mineralogy. At the same time, Scacchi received the post of director of the Museum of Mineralogy of Naples, a position he held until his retirement in 1891.

In 1861 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . From 1875 he was a member of the national Accademia dei Lincei . As early as 1867, a foreign membership linked him to the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1872 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences , in 1887 in the Académie des Sciences in Paris and in 1890 in the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg .

Scientific work

His first work dealt with research in the field of conchology , connected with the editing of the Catalogus Conchyliorum Regni neapolitani (published 1836), as well as with the fossil shell finds on the island of Ischia and along the beach between Pozzuoli and Monte Nuovo in 1841.

A major focus of his research was crystallography , mineralogy and volcanology, in particular the description of the morphology and genesis of minerals on Vesuvius. He also made important discoveries in the field of crystallography. He also described several new minerals such as picromerite (1855), chloromagnesite (1873) and chloraluminite (1874). Although he was not the first to describe the Voltait , he was the first to clearly determine its composition. The mineral nocerite , discovered by him in 1881, turned out to be identical in later investigations to the fluoborite described by Per Geijer in 1926 . Nocerite was therefore discredited as a mineral and the name has been synonymous with fluoborite ever since.

Honors

  • In 1844 Rudolph Amandus Philippi named the mussel genus Scacchia from the Lasaeidae family in his honor
  • The mineral, first described by Scacchi in 1855 and called Protochloruro di Manganese , was renamed Scacchit by Adam in 1869 after him .
  • The Liceo Scientifico Statale 'Angelo Scacchi' teaching institute is named after him. '

Publications

  • Scacchi himself compiled a complete catalog of his publications in 1891, which appeared in 1894 together with an obituary in the Giornale di mineralogia, cristallografia e petrografia Ulrico Hoepli, Vol. V, 1894, pp. 1–22 ( obituary in the Internet Archive ).
  • Co-author of: Memoria sulla incendio vesuviano: del mese die maggio 1855. Nobile, Napoli 1855 ( archive.org ; content: Vesuvius eruption 1855, Italian).
  • Catalogus conchyliorum Regni Neapolitani: quae usque adhuc reperit A. Scacchi. Thorn, Neapoli 1857 ( archive.org ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 210.
  2. ↑ Member entry by Prof. Dr. Arcangelo Scacchi (with picture) at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on February 10, 2016.
  3. ↑ Cesare Brisi, Wilhelm Eitel: Nocerite (= Fluoborite) In: American Mineralogist Volume 42 (1957), p. 921 ( PDF 191.7 kB )
  4. ↑ Scacchite near Mindat (Scacchi (1855) Mem. Incend. Vesuv .: 181 (as protochloruro di Manganese) .; dam (1869) Tableau minéralogique, Paris: 70)
  5. ^ Liceo Scientifico Statale 'Angelo Scacchi
personal data
SURNAME Scacchi, Arcangelo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian geologist, mineralogist and volcanologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Gravina di Puglia
DATE OF DEATH October 11, 1893
Place of death Naples