Francesco Cetti

Francesco Cetti

Francesco Cetti (born August 9, 1726 in Mannheim , † November 20, 1778 in Sassari ) was an Italian Jesuit , mathematician and zoologist .

Live and act

Francesco Cetti came from a family in Como in Lombardy . He was initially trained at the Jesuit College in Monza . At the age of 16 he entered the Jesuit Order of Genoa as a novice on October 13, 1742 . From 1744 to 1747 Cetti studied rhetoric and philosophy in Milan . There he was then from 1748 to 1749 professor of grammar . The following year, Cetti taught humanities in Bormio . From 1750 to 1752 he was professor of rhetoric. He then studied theology in Milan from 1752 to 1756. In 1755 Cetti was ordained a priest . His teaching activities took him to Arona , where he held the chair of philosophy and mathematics until autumn 1765. On February 2, 1760, Cetti took the four Jesuit vows .

Map of Sardinia from the first volume of Cetti's Natural History of Sardinia

In 1764 Karl Emanuel III offered him . from the House of Savoy to the Chair of Geometry and Mathematics at the University of Sassari . In January 1766, Cetti arrived in Sassari , Sardinia , where his efforts to improve education soon bore fruit. In addition, he devoted himself to nature studies. Cetti shared his discoveries and observations with the minister Giovanni Battista Lorenzo Bogino (1701–1784), with whom he was in correspondence from 1766 to 1768. In 1767 Cetti became rector of the Jesuit college in Canopoleno and a year later prefect of the royal schools of Sassari.

From 1768 to 1770, Cetti took a closer look at mineralogy when he discovered evidence of the mineral chalcedony near Bosa and Silanus . After the abolition of the Jesuit order in 1773, he devoted himself to his natural history studies. The results of his studies, the three-volume work Storia naturale di Sardegna (German title: Natural History of Sardinia ), was published together with an appendix to the first volume from 1774 to 1778. In the autumn of 1777 Cetti traveled again to Turin, possibly to present his research results there personally. In December of the same year he returned to Sassari with the decision to complete the fourth part of his natural history, which was to deal with the insects and fossils of Sardinia. However, his death on November 20, 1778 prevented the completion of this volume.

Honor taxon

The scientific name of the silk singer ( Cettia cetti ) honors Francesco Cetti.

Fonts

Original editions

• Storia naturale di Sardegna . 4 volumes, Giuseppe Piattoli, Sassari 1774–1778.
  • I quadrupedi di Sardegna . Giuseppe Piattoli, Sassari 1774 (online) .
  • Gli uccelli di Sardegna . Giuseppe Piattoli, Sassari 1776 (online) .
  • Appendice alla Storia naturale dei quadrupedi di Sardegna . Giuseppe Piattoli, Sassari 1777.
  • Anfibi e Pesci di Sardegna . Giuseppe Piattoli, Sassari 1778 (online) .
• Uso della propria nobiltà. Al commendatore Don Silvio Atti die Maccarani, prendendo egli l'abito di cavaliere di Santo Stefano in Pisa l'anno 1777 . Giuseppe Piattoli, Sassari 1777.

German translations

• Natural history of Sardinia . JG Müller, Leipzig 1783–1784.
  • Volume 1: Geographical Description of Sardinia. History of the Mammals . JG Müller, Leipzig 1783.
  • Volume 2: History of Birds . JG Müller, Leipzig 1784.
  • Volume 3: History of Amphibians and Fish . JG Müller, Leipzig 1784.
• Natural history of Sardinia. New edition . JG Müller, Leipzig 1799

literature

• Storia naturale di Sardegna . A cura di Antonello Mattone e Piero Sanna, Ilisso, Nuoro 2000, ISBN 88-87825-07-6 (PDF; 5.1 MB) .
• Antonello Mattone, Piero Sanna: Francesco Cetti e la storia naturale della Sardegna . In: Studi Storici . Volume 43, Number 4, 2002, pp. 967-1002 (JSTOR) .

Individual evidence

1. ^ The Houghton Mifflin dictionary of biography . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003, ISBN 0-618-25210-X , p. 297.

Web links

• U. Baldini: CETTI, Francesco in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani .