Francesco Zantedeschi (August 20, 1797 – March 29, 1873) was an Italian

Catholic priest The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms ''priest'' refers only ...

and

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate ca ...

Biography

A native of

Dolcè Dolcè is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Verona in the Italian region Veneto, located about west of Venice and about northwest of Verona, in the Adige Valley. Main sights *Parish church of Volargne (13th century), with fresco ...

, near

Verona Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city municipality in the region and the second largest in nor ...

, Zantedeschi was for some time professor of

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rel ...

and philosophy in the

Liceo of Venice The Gran Teatre del Liceu (, English: Great Theatre of the Lyceum), known as ''El Liceu'', is an opera house in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Located in La Rambla, it is the oldest running theatre in Barcelona. Founded in 1837 at another ...

. Later he accepted the chair of physics in the

University of Padua The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from ...

, which he held until 1853 being then obliged to resign on account of failing sight. He was an ardent worker and prolific writer, 325 memoirs and communications appearing under his name in the '' Biblioteca Italiana'' and the ''

Bibliothèque universelle de Genève A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

''. Zantedeschi died at

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of t ...

in 1873.

Scientific work

In 1829 and again in 1830, Zantedeschi published papers on the production of

electric current An electric current is a stream of charged particles, such as electrons or ions, moving through an electrical conductor or space. It is measured as the net rate of flow of electric charge through a surface or into a control volume. The movin ...

s in closed circuits by the approach and withdrawal of a

magnet A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, steel, nic ...

, thereby anticipating

Michael Faraday Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic inductio ...

's classical experiments of 1831. While carrying out researches on the

solar spectrum Sunlight is a portion of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun, in particular infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. On Earth, sunlight is scattered and filtered through Earth's atmosphere, and is obvious as daylight when the ...

, Zantedeschi was among the first to recognize the marked absorption by the

atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. ...

red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...

yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In ...

, and

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 Nanometre, nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by ...

light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 te ...

. He also thought that he had detected, in 1838, a magnetic action on steel needles by

ultraviolet Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 PHz) to 400 nm (750 THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiati ...

light. Though this effect was not confirmed, a connection between light and magnetism was suspected so many years before the announcement in 1867 by

James Clerk Maxwell James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and ligh ...

of the

electromagnetic theory In physics, electromagnetism is an interaction that occurs between particles with electric charge. It is the second-strongest of the four fundamental interactions, after the strong force, and it is the dominant force in the interactions ...

of light. In a tract of 16 pages, published in 1859, Zantedeschi defended the claims of

Gian Domenico Romagnosi Gian Domenico Romagnosi (; 11 December 1761 – 8 June 1835) was an Italian philosopher, economist and jurist. Biography Gian Domenico Romagnosi was born in Salsomaggiore Terme. He studied law at the University of Parma from 1782 to 1786. I ...

to the discovery in 1802 of the magnetic effect of the electric current, a discovery which is usually accredited to

Hans Christian Ørsted Hans Christian Ørsted ( , ; often rendered Oersted in English; 14 August 17779 March 1851) was a Danish physicist and chemist who discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields, which was the first connection found between electricity ...

in 1820. Zantedeschi's experiments and papers on the repulsion of

flame A flame (from Latin '' flamma'') is the visible, gaseous part of a fire. It is caused by a highly exothermic chemical reaction taking place in a thin zone. When flames are hot enough to have ionized gaseous components of sufficient density the ...

s by a strong magnetic field (discovered by Padre Bancalari of the Pious Schools in 1847) attracted general attention at the time. In 1851, Zantedeschi was elected as a member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communi ...

. In his later years Zantedeschi dictated an

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English p ...

which is kept in the archives of the Academy of Verona. His principal works are: ''Ricerche sul termo-elettricismo dinamico'' (1838) and ''Trattato del Magnetismo e della Elettricità'' (1843).

Works

* * * *

References

Sources

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Zantedeschi, Francesco 1797 births 1873 deaths People from the Province of Verona 19th-century Italian physicists 19th-century Italian Roman Catholic priests Catholic clergy scientists

Biography

Scientific work

Works

See also

References

Sources