__NOTOC__ ''Emilio Chiovenda'' (18 May 1871 – 19 February 1941) was an Italian

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 ...

. Chiovenda was born in Rome in 1871 to a family originating from rural

Piedmont Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...

. He was educated at the Collegio Rosmini in

Stresa Stresa is a ''comune'' (municipality) of about 4,600 residents on the shores of Lake Maggiore in the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, in the Italian region of Piedmont. about northwest of Milan. It is situated on road and rail routes to the Sim ...

and

Domodossola Domodossola (; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, in the region of Piedmont, northern Italy. It was also known as Oscela, Oscella, Oscella dei Leponzi, Ossolo, Ossola Lepontiorum, and Domo d'Ossola (due to it ...

College before graduating in Natural Sciences from the University of Rome in 1898. He frequently collaborated with Pietro Romualdo Pirotta, under whom he had studied in Rome, including on an unfinished catalogue of flora in Rome and on ''The flora of the colony of Eritrea''. He initially specialised in the flora of the Val d'Ossola valley in Piedmont, where his family had ancestral roots. He collected around 20,000 plant samples, now preserved at the department of Experimental Evolutionary Biology at Bologna University. At the turn of the century he was appointed the first curator of the Colonial Herbarium (''Erbario coloniale'') in Rome, founded to preserve the plant species brought back by scientific expeditions to Italian colonies in

East Africa East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the Africa, African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the regi ...

in the preceding years. In 1909 he travelled extensively in

Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...

and

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

to study indigenous plants, which made him a global authority on the flora of East Africa. In 1915 he moved with the Colonial Herbarium from Rome to Florence. From 1926 to 1929 he was professor of botany at the

University of Catania The University of Catania () is a university located in Catania, Sicily. Founded in 1434, it is the oldest university in Sicily, the 13th oldest in Italy, and the 29th oldest in the world. With over 38,000 enrolled students, it is the largest uni ...

. In 1930 he was appointed dean of the Faculty of Science at the

University of Modena The University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (), located in Modena and Reggio Emilia, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, is one of the oldest universities in Europe, founded in 1175, with a population of 20,000 students. The medieval university disappeared b ...

. In 1935 he moved to Bologna, where he headed the Botanical Institute and managed the Botanical Garden. In 1941 Chiovenda died of cerebral thrombosis in Bologna. He was buried in the cemetery of the village of Premosello in Piedmont.

Selected publications

*''Flora della Colonia Eritrea'' 1903 (in collaboration with Romualdo Pirotta) *''Flora delle Alpi Lepontine occidentali'' (1904–1935) *''Flora somala'' Roma, Sindacato italiano arti grafiche, 1929 *''Pteridophyta'' Catania, Tip. Giandolfo, 1929 *''Il papiro in Italia : un interessante problema di biologia, sistematica e fitogeografia'' Forli, Tip. Valbonesi, 1931

References

External links

* * * 1871 births 1941 deaths 19th-century Italian botanists 20th-century Italian botanists People from Premosello-Chiovenda {{Italy-botanist-stub