Luigi Bellardi (18 May 1818 – 17 September 1889) was an Italian

malacologist Malacology, from Ancient Greek μαλακός (''malakós''), meaning "soft", and λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is the branch of invertebrate zoology that deals with the study of the Mollusca (molluscs or mollusks), the second-largest ...

and

entomologist Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

who specialised in

Diptera Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advance ...

. Bellardi was born 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 ...

and died in

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

. His collection is in the

Turin Museum of Natural History The Turin Museum of Natural History (Italian: ''Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali di Torino'' or MRSN) was established in 1978 to house the natural history collections of the University of Turin and other collections of natural history, origina ...

In 1872, then a professor at Liceo Gioberti, Luigi Bellardi began ''I molluschi dei terreni terziari del Piemonte della Liguria'', a work on molluscs of the Middle and Early

Tertiary Tertiary (from Latin, meaning 'third' or 'of the third degree/order..') may refer to: * Tertiary period, an obsolete geologic period spanning from 66 to 2.6 million years ago * Tertiary (chemistry), a term describing bonding patterns in organic ch ...

in the Mediterranean basin. In 1888 he published the five parts dealing with

Cephalopoda A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda ( Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, ...

Pteropoda Pteropoda (common name pteropods, from the Greek meaning "wing-foot") are specialized free-swimming pelagic sea snails and sea slugs, marine opisthobranch gastropods. Most live in the top 10 m of the ocean and are less than 1 cm long. ...

and the first families of

Gastropoda Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...

. In 1889 his student Prof. Federico Sacco (1864–1948) took over this work and published 25 more sections partly based on Bellardi’s work on this species-rich fossil group. A list of his publications can be found at the database

WoRMS The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is a taxonomic database that aims to provide an authoritative and comprehensive catalogue and list of names of marine organisms. Content The content of the registry is edited and maintained by scien ...

References

*Conci, C. 1975: Repertorio delle biografie e bibliografie degli scrittori e cultori italiani di entomologia. ''Mem. Soc. Ent. Ital''. 48 1969(4) 817–1069 843–844 *Conci, C. & Poggi, R. 1996: Iconography of Italian Entomologists, with essential biographical data. ''Mem. Soc. Ent. Ital''. 75 159–382, 418 Fig.

External links

* 1818 births 1889 deaths Scientists from Genoa Italian entomologists Dipterists Italian malacologists {{entomologist-stub