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Antonio Bertoloni (February 8, 1775 in 
Sarzana
Sarzana (, ; ) is a town, ''comune'' (municipality) and former short-lived Catholic bishopric in the Province of La Spezia, Liguria, Italy. It is east of La Spezia, on the railway to Pisa, at the point where the railway to Parma diverges to the ...
– April 17, 1869 in Bologna
Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...
) was an Italian physician
A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...
and botanist
Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...
who made extensive studies of Italian plants. He also collected notable samples of Central America
Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...
n flora.
Biography
He studied medicine and botany at theUniversity of Pavia
The University of Pavia (, UNIPV or ''Università di Pavia''; ) is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. There was evidence of teaching as early as 1361, making it one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest un ...
, afterwards (1796) continuing his medical education in Genoa
Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...
. For a period of time he practiced medicine in his home town of Sarzana. In 1811 he returned to Genoa, where he served as a professor of physics at the Imperial Lyceum. In 1815 he was appointed professor of botany at the University of Bologna
The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...
.
His son Giuseppe
Giuseppe is the Italian form of the given name Joseph,
from Latin Josephus, Iōsēphus from Ancient Greek Ἰωσήφ (Iōsḗph), from Hebrew יוסף.
The feminine form of the name is Giuseppa or Giuseppina (given name), Giuseppina.
People wit ...
(1804-1874) was a botanist and entomologist in Bologna.
Tributes
* '' Bertolonia'', botanical genus from the familyMelastomataceae
Melastomataceae () is a family of dicotyledonous flowering plants found mostly in the tropics (two-thirds of the genera are from the New World tropics) comprising c. 175 genera and c. 5115 known species. Melastomes are annual or perennial herbs ...
.
* Plants with the specific epithet of ''bertolonii'', an example being '' Ophrys bertolonii'' (Bertoloni's bee orchid).
Selected works
His major work, "Flora Italica; sistens plantas in Italia et in insulis circumstantibus sponte nascentes", was issued in several volumes from 1833 to 1854. This was followed by a monograph on Italiancryptogam
A cryptogam (scientific name ''Cryptogamae'') is a plant, in the broad sense of the word, or a plant-like organism that share similar characteristics, such as being multicellular, photosynthetic, and primarily immobile, that reproduces via sp ...
s called "Flora italica cryptogama" (1858). Other noteworthy publications by Bertoloni include:
* "Rariorum Liguriae plantarum", 1803.
* "Mantissa plantarum florae alpium Apunanarum", 1832.
*
* "Florula guatimalensis sistens plantas nonnullas in Guatimala sponte nascentes", 1840.
Other works include:
* ''Elenchus plantarum vivarum quas cum aliis vivis plantis commutandas exhibet Hortus Botanicus Archigymnasii Bononiensi'' 1820.
*
He published many papers, in both Italian and Latin, in the journals ''Nuovi annali delle scienze naturali'' (1834-1854), and ''Novi Commentarii Academiae Scientiarum Instituti Bononiensis'' (1834-1849) and its successor ''Memorie della Accademia delle Scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna'' (from 1850 onward). A large number of the papers in the second and third of those journals were part of an extended series entitled ''Miscellanea Botanica'' (starting in 1842), which included everything from the discussion of botanical references in Biblical and Ancient Greek and Roman sources through the systematisation of published knowledge to the formal description of new species.
Notes
References