Giuseppe Giovanni Antonio Meneghini

Giuseppe Giovanni Antonio Meneghini (30 July 1811, Padua – 29 January 1889, Pisa) was an Italian botanist, geologist and paleontologist.

Biography

In 1834 he obtained his medical doctorate from the University of Padua, where during the following year, he became an assistant to the chair of botany. In 1839 he was appointed professor of preparatory sciences at Padua, a position he maintained up until 1848, when he was removed from his post due to his association with revolutionaries. In 1849 he became a professor of mineralogy and geology at the University of Pisa as well as director of the geological cabinet. At Pisa he replaced Leopoldo Pilla (1805–1848), who was killed in the battle of Curtatone.^[1] In 1874 the chair of mineralogy and geology was split into two entities, with Antonio D'Achiardi (1839–1902) receiving the chair of mineralogy, leaving Meneghini with the chair of geology.^[2][3]

He made contributions in his studies involving the geology of Tuscany, and on his research of fossils from all parts of Italy and Sardinia, including Cambrian era trilobites found in Sardinia and ammonites uncovered in Lombardy and the Apennines.^[2][3][4]

In 1860 he became a member of the Académie nationale des sciences. In 1874 he was elected president of the Societa Toscana di Scienze Naturali, and for a period of time, also served as president of the Italian Geological Society.^[2] In 1886 he was named as a senator of the 16th legislature of the Kingdom of Italy.

The mineral meneghinite is named after him.^[5] In 1839 the botanical genus Meneghinia (family Boraginaceae) was named in his honor by Stephan Endlicher.^[6][7]

Selected works

• Ricerche sulla struttura del caule nelle piante monocotiledoni, 1836.
• Alghe italiane e dalmatiche illustrate, 1842.
• Sulla teorie de' Meritalli di Gaudichaud, 1844.
• Sulla animalità delle diatomee e revisione organografica dei generi di diatomee stabiliti dal Kützing, 1846 (translated into English and published in 1853 as "On the animal nature of Diatomeæ : with an organographical revision of the genera, established by Kützing"; referring to German botanist Friedrich Traugott Kützing).
• Osservazioni stratigrafiche e paleontologiche concernenti la geologia della Toscana e dei paesi limitrofi, 1851 (with Paolo Savi).^[8]
• Paleontologie de l'ile de Sardaigne, 1857.
• Monographie des fossiles du calcaire rouge ammonitique (lias supérieur) de Lombardie et de l'Appennin central, 1867.^[9][10]

References