Background
Aldo Mieli was born on December 4, 1879, in Livorno, Toscana, Italy to a wealthy Jewish family of Mosè Mieli and Marietta Balimbau. He was raised on Chianciano, a small spa town in Tuscany, to which his family moved in 1880.
Lungarno Antonio Pacinotti, 43, 56126 Pisa PI, Italy
Mieli graduated in chemistry from the University of Pisa in 1904.
Aldo Mieli was a member of the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
https://www.amazon.com/Lavoisier-formaci%C3%B3n-desarrollo-electricidad-descubrimiento/dp/B00T1G99XI/ref=sr_1_24?keywords=Aldo+Mieli&qid=1577715227&sr=8-24
1944
activist chemist historian scientist
Aldo Mieli was born on December 4, 1879, in Livorno, Toscana, Italy to a wealthy Jewish family of Mosè Mieli and Marietta Balimbau. He was raised on Chianciano, a small spa town in Tuscany, to which his family moved in 1880.
Mieli graduated in chemistry from the University of Pisa in 1904, then went to Leipzig to attend Ostwald’s lectures on physical chemistry. He next studied mathematics with Ulisse Dini and chemistry with Stanislas Cannizzaro and Emanuele Paternò.
Mieli was Emanuele Paternò's assistant at the University of Rome from 1905 to 1912. He became a docent at that university in 1908; in the same year he also published two articles on chemistry. Mieli’s interests at this time were not confined to chemistry, however. During the same period he wrote a number of articles of general cultural interest, as well as works on the philosophy of science and the relationships between science and art.
From 1912 on, Mieli began to devote himself to the history of science. He became the Italian bibliographic editor for Isis, which had just been founded. He also collaborated in editing the journal Scientia and edited the Rivista di storia delle scienze mediche e naturali, in whose pages he initiated a campaign to have the history of science taught in the universities. In 1913-1914, with Ermino Trollo, he began the series Classici della Scienza e della Filosofia, which was inspired by Ostwald’s collection. In 1919 the publisher Nardecchia suggested that he take over the bibliographical work Gli scienziati italiani; while only one full volume (and part of another) appeared, it included studies by A. Boffito, A. Corsini, A. Favaro, G. Loria, and Mieli himself. The journal Archivio di storia della scienza was founded in the same year; Mieli became its editor in 1921 (after 1925, the journal was called Archeion).
At this time, too, Mieli invested his own money in founding the Leonardo da Vinci publishing house. Among its first publications were the Universitas scriptorum and the Rivista di studi sessuali e di eugenetica (Mieli was secretary of the Italian Society for Sexual Studies, and editor of its journal until 1928). The most notable of Mieli’s own works that were published by his house are Pagine di storia della chimica (1922) and Manuale di storia della scienza: Antichitá (1925).
In 1928 political considerations forced Mieli to leave Italy. He went to Paris, where he became director of the section for the history of science of the Centre International de Synthèse, to which he gave his large history of science library. He also continued to edit Archeion and, at a meeting of the International Congress of the Historical Sciences held in Oslo, proposed the formation of an International Committee for the History of Sciences. The members of the committee included Abel Rey, Sarton, Sigerist, Charles Singer, Sudhoff, and Lynn Thorndike; Mieli served as secretary of the group and organized the First International Congress of the History of Science, held in Paris in May 1929. During this congress, the committee transformed itself into the International Academy for the History of Science, and Archeion, under Mieli’s editorship, became its official journal.
In 1939, on the eve of World War II, Mieli again exiled himself. He went to Argentina, where from 1940 until 1943 he taught the history of science at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral in Santa Fé. He created an Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science, continued to edit Archeion, and published a summary of his lectures. In 1943, however, the political situation in Argentina, and especially the intervention of the government into university affairs, forced Mieli to leave Santa Fé, and he retired to Florida, near Buenos Aires, sadly spent in both health and finances. To recoup the latter, he began to write his Panorama general de historia de la ciencia. Of the eight volumes that he planned, two were published before his death; he saw only the proofs of volumes III, IV and V. (The work was finished by Desiderio Papp and José Babini; it was eventually published in twelve volumes.) Mieli was gravely ill for the last three years of his life. He gave up the editorship of Archeion, which became the Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences. In the first issue of the newly renamed journal Mieli wrote, “Je puis mourir tranquille en sachant qu’une partie, au moins, des multiples efforts que j’ai amplement déployés pendant ma vie, pour la réalisation de maints idéaux, va continuer à exercer son action bienfaisante.”
Mieli was a member of the Italian Socialist Party, which led to his election as town councillor in Chianciano in 1901. He left in 1903. Mieli claimed in his autobiography that he left the Socialist movement due to the lack of sincerity and idealism in the movement. Police records, however, showed that Mieli's homosexuality referred to as 'manifest immorality' was well known in the local area, which would have severely inhibited his political career.
Secret police raided Mieli's apartment in Rome in 1929, just a few months after he had moved to France. Mieli's friend Gino Chiappini, a typographer, and his friend Angelo Pisani were living there at the time. By 1930, police records marked him as a "dangerous socialist."
Mieli was one of the first to consider this study as an autonomous discipline, and his position was consolidated when he became the Italian bibliographic editor for Isis. Aldo Mieli's activism in the field of sexual liberation is intrinsically linked to the "Review of sexual studies" which he founded in 1921 and directs until 1928. The "Review" which gave ample space to homosexuality issues, as evidenced by the publication already in 1921 of a long article by Magnus Hirschfeld, one of the best known homosexual activists of the time, often touched on difficult and great topics news such as divorce, abortion, the teaching of sex education in schools and the closure of brothels.
Aldo Mieli was a member of the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and International Academy of the History of Science.
Aldo Mieli was gay.
There is no information on Aldo Mieli ever being married or having any children. He was homosexual.