Giovanni Giuseppe Bianconi
Giovanni Giuseppe Bianconi (born July 31, 1809 in Bologna ; † October 18, 1878 ibid) was an Italian malacologist , herpetologist , botanist and geologist . He was a professor of natural history at the University of Bologna .
Bianconi came from a family of academics, his great-grandfather Gian Ludovico Bianconi (1717–1781) was a professor of medicine in Bologna, personal physician to the King of Saxony and ambassador to Paris and Rome. His uncle Girolamo was an archeology professor in Bologna. His mother was French. Bianconi was orphaned at an early age and was raised by an uncle Gian Pietro. He attended the Jesuit College in Modena and at the Bologna seminar and studied mathematics and philosophy in Bologna with a Laureate degree in 1837. He then traveled to the Appennines for research purposes. He taught zoology and mineralogy in Bologna from 1840 and became professor of natural history in 1842. Since he refused to take the oath to the republic in 1864, he lost his professorship. For similar conservative, religious reasons he rejected Darwin's theory of evolution, presented in a book in 1874. He saw similarities between species not as an indication of common ancestry, but as functionalHomology . He was also temporarily director of the Natural History Museum in Bologna and in 1850 traveled to Paris and London to study museums there (especially the British Museum). In 1852 he was commissioner of the Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition of the Province of Bologna. He died of pneumonia.
Bianconi described several new species of reptiles.
Bianconi was married to Vittoria Bignardi, daughter of the anatomy professor in Modena, and had four children with her.
Fonts
- Sul sistema vascolare delle foglie considerato come carattere distintivo [sic] per la determinazione delle filliti, Bologna, 1838
- Storia naturale dei terreni ardenti, dei vulcani fangosi, Bologna 1840
- Repertorio Italiano per la Storia Naturale. Zoologiam, Mineralogiam, Geologiam, Palaentologiam, Bologna 1854
- La Theory Darwinienne et la creation dite independante, 1874 (the work also appeared in Italian)
- Specimina Zoologica Mozambicana, fasciculus IV, V. (Mollusca), Memorie della Accademia delle Scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna, Volume 3, 1850/1851, pp. 3-18, 91-112
Web links
- Biography in the Shellers from the Past series
- Biography of Maria Chiara Liguori, Storia e memoria di Bologna
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bianconi, Giovanni Giuseppe |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bianconi, Gian Giuseppe |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian malacologist, herpetologist, botanist and geologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 31, 1809 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bologna |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 18, 1878 |
| Place of death | Bologna |