Pollonera In Taylor
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Carlo Pollonera (
Alexandria, Egypt Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...
, March 27, 1849 –
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 ...
, June 17, 1923) was an Italian painter, particularly of landscapes, and also an important
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 ...
.


Biography

Carlo Pollonera's father, Giovanni B. Pollonera, was a lawyer in
Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...
. He died when Carlo was a child, after which his mother returned to Italy (
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 remarried. As a seventeen-year-old, Carlo fought with
Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as (). In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as () or (). 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, revolutionary and republican. H ...
on the Trentino campaign of 1866. In 1865, the family had moved to
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 ...
, where Pollonera began studying painting with Alberto Maso Gilli. He enrolled at the
Accademia Albertina The Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti ("Albertina Academy of Fine Arts") is an institution of higher education in Turin, Italy History In the first half of the seventeenth century, there was a "University of Painters, Sculptors and Architects" ...
and studied under Enrico Gamba and
Andrea Gastaldi Andrea Gastaldi (April 18, 1826 – January 9, 1889) was an Italian painter, primarily of historical canvases and portraits. Biography Gastaldi was born and died in Turin, Piedmont. He studied at the Accademia Albertina under Michele Cusa, ...
. Pollonera was a rebellious pupil, wanting to paint exactly what he saw, rather than, for instance, changing a distracting background. This principle not to improve on what he saw remained a hallmark of his painting throughout Pollonera's career. After four years with Gastaldi, in 1873 he switched to study in the private school of
Antonio Fontanesi Antonio Fontanesi (23 February 1818 – 17 April 1882) was an Italian painter who lived in Meiji period Japan between 1876 and 1878. He introduced European oil painting techniques to Japan, and exerted a significant role in the development of mo ...
. In January 1875, he travelled with his close friend Carlo Stratta to
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, where he studied under
Thomas Couture Thomas Couture (; 21 December 1815 – 30 March 1879) was a French history painter and teacher. He taught many notable contemporary figures of the art world, such as Édouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, John La Farge, Pierre Puvis de Chava ...
and was influenced by the Barbizon school. Other visits were to Milan in 1874 and to Rome between 1900 and 1912, where he associated with
Antonio Mancini Antonio Mancini (14 November 1852 – 28 December 1930) was an Italian painter. Biography Mancini was born in Rome, Papal States, and showed precocious ability as an artist. At the age of twelve, he was admitted to the Institute of Fine Art ...
,
Pietro Canonica Pietro Canonica (1 March 1869 – 8 June 1959) was an Italian sculptor, painter, opera composer, professor of arts and senator for life. Biography He was born in Moncalieri, a town in the Province of Turin, northern Italy. His long and pre ...
and
John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 15, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era, Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil ...
. His ''Card Players'', one of his first works, was exhibited at the 1873 Promotrice of Turin, where he subsequently exhibited regularly. Istituto Matteucci
biography from ''Dizionario degli artisti'', curated by Cristina Bonagura, Part of the work of ''Pittori & pittura dell’Ottocento italiano'' (1996–1997) coordinated by Giuliano Matteucci with the collaboration of Paul Nicholls, and completed with the Redazioni Grandi Opere dell’Istituto Geografico De Agostini.
Among his works are: ''Canavese''; ''Aprile''; ''Le oche''; ''Tranquillità''; ''Il ballo''; ''La mestizia''; ''Terrena fiorito'', and ''Il Malone''. In 1882, he exhibited the life-size portrait of ''Il seminatore''. Some of his paintings are nowadays valued at thousands, or even tens of thousands, of euros. As a child, Pollonera had become the stepson of the prominent natural scientist and senator
Michele Lessona Michele Lessona (20 September 1823, Venaria Reale, Piedmont – 20 July 1894, Turin) was an Italian zoologist. Michele Lessona became a specialist in amphibians. His accomplishments include translating certain works of Darwin, for example, ''Th ...
, whose second wife (Pollonera's mother, Adele Masi Lessona) and children were much involved in his scientific output, particularly the translations. Although Pollonera had started to study natural sciences, he soon switched to painting. Nevertheless, from 1882 to 1916 Pollonera wrote over 50 scientific articles on non-marine molluscs. See his
bibliography Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliograph ...
page. Most articles were written in Italian for Italian journals, but there were also instance of articles written in French, English, Portuguese and German for journals of those countries. His peak output was in the decade 1884–1893, when working on the fauna of Italy and adjacent areas; only 16 articles appeared after 1898, when his attention shifted more to the fauna of Africa. Pollonera's first publication was a monograph on Italian slugs in conjunction with his younger half-brother Mario Lessona, but subsequently he was always the sole author. However, the section below on taxa named after Pollonera provides many examples of generous cooperation with other scientists, sometimes authoring species descriptions in other's papers or drawing the plates. Whilst some of his papers are collections of brief notes about disparate topics, others are authoritative monographs about particular taxa. His obituarist Colosi points out that his thorough and keenly-observed species descriptions were appreciated even by those who disagreed with his conclusions about the systematics. His skill as an artist is also apparent in the plates illustrating his articles (see examples below). One particularly important aspect of his research is that he dissected the animals to provide extra anatomical characters; this has since become standard but was "cutting-edge" at the time. This approach is particularly valuable in studying slugs, which was the group that he published most on, although others of his papers concern terrestrial snails and occasionally freshwater and fossil faunas. His collection is in the Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturale di Torino. For 20 years Pollonera was in a relationship with a pianist, whose name is now lost; this was one reason that he remained in Turin. But in 1913 Pollonera married Ulma de'Bartolomeis (1886–1981), 37 years his junior, who had taken private painting classes with him. They are known sometimes to have worked on the same canvas together. There was just one daughter, Sabina (1914–1996). Carlo Pollonera died on 17 June 1923 after a short stay in the San Giovanni hospital in Turin. Pollonera was not a practising Christian but believed in a superior being. Marziano Bernardi summarised his character as, "silent and a loner by nature, a rebel and intransigent" un silenzioso e un solitario per temperamento, un ribelle e un intransigente" One striking anecdote is that comments of literary critic and painter
Enrico Thovez Enrico Thovez (10 November 1869 – 16 February 1925) was an Italian artist-polymath best known for his contributions as a poet and literary critic. Biography Enrico Thovez was born in Turin less than ten years after unification. He was his pa ...
about the perspective of one of Pollonera's paintings led to Pollonera proposing a duel! Instead the matter was settled in court, and the two protagonists later made up.


Bibliography

A full bibliography of Carlo Pollonera appears as a separate page.


Taxa named after Pollonera

The list of taxa that have been named after Pollonera documents not only the esteem in which he was held but also the milieu of his scientific contacts as his influence spread. The first to name a species after Pollonera was his half-brother Mario Lessona, who described the land snail ''
Clausilia ''Clausilia'' is a European genus of small, air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Clausiliidae, the door snails, all of which have a clausilium.Bank, R.; Bouchet, P. (2017). Clausilia Draparnaud, 1805. ...
pollonerae'' in 1880. The only locality he listed is one reported by Pollonera. The name is now considered a synonym of '' Charpentieria dyodon thomasiana''. In 1884, the geologist
Federico Sacco Federico Sacco (February 5, 1864 in Fossano – October 2, 1948 in Trofarello) was an Italian geologist, paleontologist and mycologist. Biography He was the son of Giuseppe Antonio, a doctor, and Faustina Maria Quaglia. After his secondary studi ...
named a
Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...
) as ''Limax pollonerae'' after his colleague who "so lovingly deals with the study of Limacidae" ("con tanto amore si occupa dello studio dei Limacidi"). The same year, Sacco coined the name ''Polloneria'' for a subgenus of the land snail genus ''
Clausilia ''Clausilia'' is a European genus of small, air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Clausiliidae, the door snails, all of which have a clausilium.Bank, R.; Bouchet, P. (2017). Clausilia Draparnaud, 1805. ...
'', naming it after "one of the most illustrious Italian malacologists"; ''Polloneria'' has since been raised to the rank of genus and given rise to the name of the tribe Polloneriini. In the same article Sacco described ''Ferussacia Pollonerae''. Other colleagues in Turin were responsible for the only two non-molluscan species named after Pollonera. In 1896,
Achille Griffini Achille Griffini (10 August 1870 – 24 June 1932) was an Italian zoologist and high school teacher who specialized in ichthyology but also took an interest in entomology. He wrote on the taxonomy of the Orthoptera, particularly the Stenopelmatidae ...
named an orthopteran from Central America '' Cocconotus Pollonerae'' (now in the genus ''Eubliastes''). And in 1912,
Lorenzo Camerano Lorenzo Camerano (9 April 1856 Biella – 22 November 1917 Turin) was an Italian herpetologist and entomologist. Born in Biella in 1856 he studied in Bologna and Torino, where he settled in order to take, between 1871 and 1873, a painting course ...
named a
horsehair worm Nematomorpha (sometimes called Gordiacea, and commonly known as horsehair worms, hairsnakes, or Gordian worms) are a phylum of parasitoid animals superficially similar to nematode worms in morphology, hence the name. Most species range in size fr ...
''Chordodes pollonerae''; Camerano was originally, like Pollonera, a painter, who had become a protégé of Pollonera's step-father Michele Lessona, eventually taking his place as head of the Turin museum, becoming a senator, and also marrying Pollonera's half sister Luigia. Meanwhile,
Napoleone Pini Napoleone Pini (1835, Milan22 March 1907, Milan) was an Italian people, Italian Zoology, zoologist and Palaeontology, palaeontologist. Biography Napoleone Pini was born into an aristocratic family. He was an accountant. In 1872 he became a membe ...
, based in
Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
, had named two species after Pollonera in different 1885 articles printed in the same volume: one was the snail ''Pupa pollonerae'' (now '' Orcula spoliata'') and the other the slug ''Arion pollonerae''. In the first case, it was Pollonera who had passed on the specimens of the "new" species to Pini and, in the second, he had drawn the plates illustrating the article. In 1888, another Italian malacologist Giorgio R. Sulliotti, used the name ''Polloneria'' for a genus of
sea butterfly The Thecosomata (collective/plural: ''thecosomes'', meaning "case/shell-body"), or sea butterflies, are a taxonomic suborder of small, pelagic, free-swimming sea snails known as holoplanktonic opisthobranch gastropod mollusks, in the order Pter ...
. As Sacco had used the name already, this new use was invalid and the older name '' Heliconoides'' is used today. A year later Sulliotti named a marine bivalve from
Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...
''Tapes Pollonerianus'' in honour of Pollonera "to whom we owe the most recent and best study of the malacological fauna of Piedmont, and with whose friendship I am honored". Sullioti compared this form with the common ''
Ruditapes decussatus ''Ruditapes'' is a genus of marine (ocean), marine bivalve molluscs, in the family (biology), family Veneridae. Species * ''Ruditapes aureus'' * ''Ruditapes bruguieri'' * ''Ruditapes decussata'' * ''Ruditapes decussatus'' * ''Ruditapes japo ...
'', from which it is not now distinguished. Pollonera's work and reputation had now begun to spread beyond Italy. In 1889, the German slug specialist
Heinrich Simroth Heinrich Rudolf Simroth (10 May 1851 Riestedt (now a part of Sangerhausen) – 31 August 1917 Gautzsch near Leipzig), was a German zoologist and malacologist. He was a professor of zoology in Leipzig. Academic career: 1888–1917 University of Le ...
named a species of slug from
Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...
''Agriolimax Pollonerae''. This is today considered a synonym of ''
Deroceras panormitanum ''Deroceras panormitanum'' is a species of air-breathing land slug, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc in the family Agriolimacidae. ''Deroceras panormitanum'' ''sensu stricto'' ("in the strict sense") is common on Sicily and Malta, but ...
'', which
Lessona Lessona is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Biella in the Italy, Italian region Piedmont, located about northeast of Turin and about east of Biella. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 2,487 and an area of .All demograph ...
and Pollonera had already described in 1882, also from Palermo. In 1890, another German, Karl Flach, better known as an entomologist, named a variety of '' Pupa biplicata'' as "Pollonerae", having discussed Pollonera's recent work on this species. The Swedish malacologist Carl Westerlund in 1892 named a soil-living snail from Malta ''Cionella pollonerae''; this is today considered a synonym of ''
Cecilioides acicula ''Cecilioides acicula'', common name the "blind snail" or "blind awlsnail", is a species of very small, air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Ferussaciidae. This is a subterranea ...
''. In 1895, the British malacologists Walter Collinge and Haversham Godwin-Austen named a semislug from Borneo as ''Microparmarion pollonerai'' after "the distinguished Italian malacologist". Two expeditions led by Borelli to Paraguay and Argentina yielded mollusc collections that Giuseppe Paravicini (of Milan) and then César Ancey (working in Algeria) wrote up in 1894 and 1897. Each named a snail species after Pollonera: ''Helix Pollonerae'' (now in the genus ''Epiphragmophora'') and ''Bulimulus Pollonerae''. Ancey thanked Pollonera for having directed the collection to him. In 1897, the cleric and malacologist Pietro Arbanasich (using the pseudonym Fra Piero) authored the description of a species of
semi-slug Semi-slugs, also spelled semislugs, are land gastropods whose shells are too small for them to retract into, but not quite vestigial. The shell of some semi-slugs may not be easily visible on casual inspection, because the shell may be covered ...
from
Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...
under the name ''Vitrina Polloneriana''. Really, Pollonera himself wrote and illustrated the description, and one might suppose that the naming was Arbanasich's way of thanking him. Current names in use for this species are ''Oligolimax pollonerianus'' and ''Sardovitrina polloneriana''. In his large 1903 monograph on the
Corsica Corsica ( , , ; ; ) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the Regions of France, 18 regions of France. It is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of the Metro ...
n non-marine mollusc fauna, the French soldier-turned-malacologist Eugène Caziot named a variety of ''Helix raspaili'' as ''pollonerae'' (now '' Tacheocampylaea acropachia pollonerae''), acknowledging the considerable help of the "Italian dissector". The collaboration was close enough that Pollonera is given as the authority for another new species described in the work. The leading North American malacologist Henry Pilsbry named two species after Pollonera in his major 1919 work on molluscs from the
Belgian Congo The Belgian Congo (, ; ) was a Belgian colonial empire, Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960 and became the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Repu ...
, the slug '' Trichotoxon pollonerae'' and the snail ''
Gulella ''Gulella'' is a genus of very small air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Streptaxidae.MolluscaBase eds. (2021). MolluscaBase. Gulella L. Pfeiffer, 1856. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Spe ...
polloneriana''. The latter was most likely so named because of its resemblance to ''G. camerani'', which had been described by Pollonera. ''Ptchotrema pollonerae'' is another species of landsnail from the Belgian Congo, this one named in 1913 by Hugh Preston, a shell dealer in London who "realized the market value of new names". Pollonera was commemorated even after his death. In 1939, ''Polloneria'' was used a third time, this time by Alonza and Alonza Bissachi, for a subgenus of unrelated hygromiid snails, The next year, to avoid the homonym, they replaced the name with ''Polloneriella''. ''Polloneriella'' is nowadays sometimes considered as a montoypic genus or sometimes considered a subgenus of '' Xerosecta''. Signature: p. 162 of Taylor (1905). See for other examples.


Galleries


Some paintings by Pollonera in the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin

Titles and dates follow those listed by Aldo Picco


Examples of plates drawn by Pollonera illustrating his malacological papers


References


External links


Discussion in Italian malacological internet forum

A list of some gastropod species described by Pollonera (omits African species)

Commercial site showing many of his paintings in colour

File listing downloadable b&w images of works in Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin (licensed as Creative Commons 3)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pollonera, Carlo 19th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 20th-century Italian painters 1849 births 1923 deaths Expatriates in Egypt Painters from Piedmont Italian genre painters Accademia Albertina alumni 19th-century Italian male artists 20th-century Italian male artists