Enrico Hillyer Giglioli (13 June 1845 – 16 December 1909) was an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...

and

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

. Giglioli was born in London and first studied there. He obtained a degree in science at the

University of Pisa The University of Pisa (, UniPi) is a public university, public research university in Pisa, Italy. Founded in 1343, it is one of the oldest universities in Europe. Together with Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and Sant'Anna School of Advanced S ...

in 1864 and started to teach zoology in Florence in 1869. Marine vertebrates, and invertebrates, were his academic interest but he was a noted amateur

ornithologist Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is a branch of zoology dedicated to the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related discip ...

and

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...

. Giglioli was director of the Royal Zoological Museum in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, Italy. He wrote up the zoology of the voyage of the

corvette A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the sloo ...

on which he had taken over from Filippo de Filippi. Professor De Filippi died in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

in 1867. He was also involved in the activities of the Florence School of Anthropology and through this developed an interest in

ethnography Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

. In 1901, he was elected as a member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

Whale sightings

In 1870 he reported seeing a new species of whale (unofficially called Giglioli's Whale) off the coast of Chile long with two dorsal fins observed by Giglioli from ''Magenta'', a warship of the Italian Royal Navy. The

Rorqual Rorquals () are the largest clade, group of baleen whales, comprising the family (biology), family Balaenopteridae, which contains nine extant taxon, extant species in two genus, genera. They include the largest known animal that has ever lived, ...

is the only similarly configured whale in the

fossil record A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

. A similar whale was seen a year later off the coast of Scotland. The two dorsal fins were said to be over six feet high, with a large pair of flippers. It was provisionally named ''Anphiptera Pacifica'', and is an unrecognized species of whale, not having been confirmed by enough sightings to be recognized as a species. The voyage of the "Magenta" was sponsored by the Government of Italy in the 19th century. He also reported a stranding of a

Cuvier's beaked whale Cuvier's beaked whale, goose-beaked whale, or ziphius (''Ziphius cavirostris'') is the most widely distributed of all beaked whales in the family Beaked whale, Ziphiidae. It is smaller than most baleen whales—and indeed the larger Toothed whal ...

in the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

, as well as

orcas The orca (''Orcinus orca''), or killer whale, is a toothed whale and the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. The only extant species in the genus '' Orcinus'', it is recognizable by its black-and-white-patterned body. A cosmopoli ...

and fin whales in the Mediterranean.

Other work

Giglioli conducted a detailed study of the

chimpanzee The chimpanzee (; ''Pan troglodytes''), also simply known as the chimp, is a species of Hominidae, great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close rel ...

skulls which his friend

Georg August Schweinfurth Georg August Schweinfurth (29 December 1836 – 19 September 1925) was a Baltic Germans, Baltic German botanist and ethnologist who explored East Central Africa. Life and explorations He was born at Riga, Latvia, then part of the Russian Emp ...

collected in the region of today's southern Sudan. He named the species '' Troglodytes schweinfurthii''. After his death, Giglioli's collection, together with his extensive archaeological and ethnological library (from 1885 Giglioli concentrated on his ethnographic collection exchanging specimens with the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

and fellow naturalists, notably

Edward Pierson Ramsay Edward Pierson Ramsay (3 December 1842 – 16 December 1916) was an Australian zoologist who specialised in ornithology. Early life Ramsay was born in Dobroyd Estate, Long Cove, Sydney, and educated at St Mark's Collegiate School, The King's S ...

), went to the

Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography The "Luigi Pigorini" National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography was a public and research museum located in Rome, Italy Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the ...

where they are now conserved. The photographic archive includes work by John K. Hillers, Timothy H. O'Sullivan and Charles Milton Bell photos as well as his own.

Works

Partial list * ''I Tasmaniani. Cenni storici ed etnologici di un popolo estinto.'' Illustrated with 15 Original Albumen Photographs (the last of the aborigines). Milano: F. Treves. * ''Elenco dei Mammiferi, degli Uccelli e dei Rettili ittiofagi appartenenti alla Fauna italiana, e Catalogo degli Anfibie dei Pesci italiani in Catalogo Sezione italiana''. Esposizione intern. di Pesca, Berlino, 1880 (11): 63–117. (also sep., Firenze, 1880: pp. 18–55). 1880. *''Primo resoconto dei risultati della inchiesta ornitologica in Italia Comp. dal dottore Enrico Hillyer Giglioli Firenze''. Coi tipi dei successori Le Monnier 1889–1891

and (second

*with

Odoardo Beccari Odoardo Beccari (16 November 1843 – 25 October 1920) was an Italian botanist famous for his discoveries in Indonesia, New Guinea, and Australia. He has been called the greatest botanist to ever study Malesia. Life Youth and education (18 ...

(1843–1920) and Francis Henry Hill Guillemard (1852–1933), ''Wanderings in the great forests of Borneo; travels and researches of a naturalist in Sarawak'' London: A. Constable & Co., Ltd. * Giglioli, E.H. 1882. New and very rare fish from the Mediterranean. ''Nature'' 25: 535. * Giglioli, E.H. 1882. New Deep-sea Fish from the Mediterranean. ''Nature'', London 27 : 198–199. * ''Intorno a due nuovi pesci dal golfo di Napoli''. ''Zool. Anz'' 6 (144). 397–400. * With A. Issel ''Esplorazione talassografica del Mediterraneo esguita sotto gli auspici del Governo italia'' no: 199–291, 5 fig. n.n., I map. 1884. * ''Note intorno agli animali vertebrati raccolti dal Conte Augusto Boutourline e dal D. Leopoldo Traversi ad Assab e nello Scioa negli anni 1884-87.'' ''Annali Mus. civ. Stor. nat. Genova'' (2) 6: 5-73. 1888. * On a supposed new genus and species of pelagic gadoid fishes from the Mediterranean. ''Proc. Zool. Soc. London'' (Pt. 3): 328–332. 1889. * ''Apunti intorno ad una Collezione Etnografica fatta durante il terzo viaggio di Cook e conservata sin dalla fine del secolo scorso nel R. Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale di Firenze''. Firenze. 1893–95.

References

Notes

Citations

* Fedora Giordano, 1990 Italy's Contribution to Native American Studies European Review of Native American Studies 4:2 * Maurice Boubier (1925). ''L’Évolution de l’ornithologie.'' Librairie Félix Alcan (Paris), coll. ''Nouvelle collection scientifique'' : ii + 308 p. * Barbara Mearns & Richard Mearns (1998). ''The Bird Collectors.'' Academic Press (Londres) : xvii + 472 p.

External links

USNM Archive
Correspondence from the years 1889-1891 documenting an exchange of Archaeological and Ethnological artifacts between the U. S. N. M. and the Museum of Zoology, Florence, Italy.