Giovanni Battista Brocchi (naturalist)

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Giovanni Battista Brocchi

Giovanni Battista Brocchi (born February 18, 1772 in Bassano del Grappa , † September 25, 1826 in Khartoum ) was an Italian naturalist , traveler and poet .

Life

Giovanni Battista Brocchi wrote verses in Italian and Latin at the age of 14. He later brought out a volume of poetry under the title Belvedere and a Latin translation of Batrachomyomachie . His parents, who belonged to the affluent middle class, sent him to Padua , where he was supposed to complete a law degree. In 1792 he traveled to Rome and carried out mineralogical and botanical studies there and in Venice . In 1792 he published the treatise Ricerche sopra la scultura presso gli Egiziani in Venice . He also wrote witty letters about Dante ( Lettere sopra Dante a Miledì , Venice 1797). In 1801 he became professor of natural history at the new Lyceum in Brescia , where he was later entrusted with the supervision of the botanical garden and the formation of a natural history cabinet.

On the basis of his treatises on the iron mines in the department of Mella ( Trattato mineralogico e chimico sulle miniere di ferro del Dipartimento del Mella , Brescia 1808, 2 vol.) Brocchi was appointed to Milan in 1809 as inspector of the Mining Authority of the Kingdom of Italy . He was also entrusted with the study of the country's rich treasures. With Malacarne he wandered through the fossil-rich area of ​​the Fassa Valley in the Alto Adige department in 1810, and as a result of this research published the text Memoria mineralogica sulla valle di Fassa in Tirolo (Milan 1811; German Dresden 1817). 1811–1813 he traveled to the fossil-rich areas of Italy and then wrote Conchiologia fossile subappennina con osservazioni geologiche sugli Appennini e sul suolo adiacente (Milan 1814, 2 vols. With 16 coppers).

When the Mining Authority to which he had transferred his collections was dissolved under Austrian rule in 1814, he embarked on new hikes from Rome, the results of which he recorded in numerous articles in the Biblioteca italiana . In 1817 his Catalogo ragionato di una raccolta di rocce, disposto con ordine geografico, per servire alla geognosia dell 'Italia appeared , which was followed by his important treatise Dello stato fisico del suolo di Roma (Rome 1820). In the latter he corrected the erroneous views of the geologist Scipione Breislak , who assumed that Rome was located on the site of a volcano to which he attributed the volcanic materials that cover the Seven Hills . Brocchi showed that these substances originate either from Mont Albano, an extinct volcano twelve miles from the city, or from the Monti Cimini even further north .

In 1821 Brocchi Muhammad Ali Pascha , the viceroy of Egypt, was recommended as director of the mines and, after having acquired the necessary practical knowledge on the journey through Carinthia , went to Alexandria in September 1822 . He traveled from here in 1823 and 1824 to what was then the southern border of the empire. Later, when Muhammad Ali Pasha had extended his power to Abyssinia and Kordofan , Brocchi took up a research mission to the Sannar Sultanate on March 3, 1825 . However, it was extremely hot, and when the traveler made his way back in June 1826 with little yield, he only got as far as Khartoum, where he died on September 25, 1826 at the age of 54 from the consequences of the dysentery .

literature

personal data
SURNAME Brocchi, Giovanni Battista
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian naturalist, traveler and poet
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1772
PLACE OF BIRTH Bassano del Grappa
DATE OF DEATH September 25, 1826
Place of death Khartoum