Filippo Parlatore
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
botanist.
Italian botanist, b. at Palermo, 8 Aug., 1816; d. at Florence, 9 Sept., 1877, a devout and faithful Catholic. He studied medicine at Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
, but practiced only for a short time, his chief activity being during the cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
epidemic of 1837. Although at that time he had been an assistant professor of anatomy, a subject on which he had already written (Treatise on the human retina), he soon gave up all other interests to devote his entire attention to botany. He first made a study of the flora
Flora
Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...
of Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, publishing in 1838 Flora panormitana (Palermo); he also dealt with the Sicilian flora in later works. In 1840 he left home to begin his extended botanical expeditions. He travelled all through Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, then into Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
(where he remained for a time at Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
with De Candolle), to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
(where he was at Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
with Webb
Philip Barker Webb
Philip Barker Webb was an English botanist.Webb, who was born to a wealthy aristocratic family studied languages, botany, and geology at Harrow and Oxford. He collected plants in Italy, Spain and Portugal, and was the first person to collect in the Tetuan Mountains of Morocco...
, the Englishman) and to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, his longest stay being at Kew
Kew
Kew is a place in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in South West London. Kew is best known for being the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens, now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace...
. His part in the Third Congress of Italian naturalists held at Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
in 1841 was of significance for him and for the development of botanical studies in Italy. At this congress, in his celebrated memoir Sulla botanica in Italia, he proposed, among other things, that a general herbarium
Herbarium
In botany, a herbarium – sometimes known by the Anglicized term herbar – is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form, mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in...
be established at Florence. This proposal was adopted. Grand Duke Leopold
Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Leopold II of Tuscany was the last reigning grand duke of Tuscany ....
sought his assistance for this herbarium, gave him the post of professor of botany at the museum of natural sciences (a chair which had been vacant for almost thirty years), and made him director of the botanical garden connected with the museum. For more than three decades Parlatore was most active in fulfilling the duties of these positions, one of his principal services being the contribution of Collections botaniques du musée royale de physique et d'histoire naturelle (Florence, 1874) to the great collection entitled Erbario centrale italiano. His own private herbarium is now a part of the central herbarium, containing about 1900-2500 fascicules. In 1849 he made an investigation of the flora of the Mont-Blanc chain of the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
; in 1851 he explored those of Northern Europe, Lapland
Lapland (region)
Lapland is a region in northern Fennoscandia, largely within the Arctic Circle. It streches across Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula . On the North it is bounded by the Barents Sea, on the West by the Norwegian Sea and on the East by the White Sea...
, and Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
; the reports of theses two expeditions appeared respectively in 1850 and 1854.
He published numerous treatises on botanical subjects,---discussing questions of system, organography
Organography
Organography is the scientific description of the structure and function of the organs of living things.-History:...
, physiology
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
, plant geography, and paleontology
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
---in various periodicals, chiefly in the Giornale botanico Italiano (1844-), which he founded. He also gave considerable attention to the history of botany in Italy. His lifework in botany, however, is Flora Italiana, of which five volumes appeared between 1848 and 1874; the next five were issued by Teodoro Caruel (to 1894) with the assistance of Parlatore's manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
. This work stands in high repute among all botanists. Mention should also be made of Lezioni di botanica comparata (Florence, 1843) and Monographia delle fumarie (Florence, 1844). To the sixteenth volume of De Candolle's Prodromus
Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis
Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis, also known by its standard botanical abbreviation Prodr. , is a 17-volume treatise on botany initiated by A. P. de Candolle. De Candolle intended it as a summary of all known seed plants, encompassing taxonomy, ecology, evolution and biogeography....
, Parlatore contributed the accounts of the conifers and gnetaceae; to Webb
Philip Barker Webb
Philip Barker Webb was an English botanist.Webb, who was born to a wealthy aristocratic family studied languages, botany, and geology at Harrow and Oxford. He collected plants in Italy, Spain and Portugal, and was the first person to collect in the Tetuan Mountains of Morocco...
's Histoire naturelle des îles Canaries (Paris, 1836-50), the accounts of the umbelliferae and graminae.
In 1842 Pierre Edmond Boissier
Pierre Edmond Boissier
Pierre Edmond Boissier was a Swiss botanist, explorer and mathematician.He was the son of Jacques Boissier and Lucile Butini , daughter of Pierre Butini a well-known physician and naturalist from Geneva...
named a genus of Cruciferae Parlatoria.