Background
He was born at Scandiano in Modena on the 10th of January 1729.
(Excerpt from Mémoires sur la Respiration J'avais promis'...)
Excerpt from Mémoires sur la Respiration J'avais promis'à mon ami Spallanzani de traduire en français ses mémoires:zn' la respiration qua'n'd ils aurait paru; cette promesse lui fit ungrand plaisir et je ne pouvais m'en croire dégagék par sa mort; je chéris tou}ouî&=ce grand homme, et les promesses de l'amitié ne sauraient être vaines.' Quand ce motif puissant m'aurait manqué pour entreprendre ce'travail, le désir seul d'avancer les progrès de la physiologie animale m'aurait: fait prendre cette résolution paroe queîcje connaissais quelques-nués des déco°u£. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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(Excerpt from Dell'Azione del Cuore Ne'vasi Sanguigni: Nuo...)
Excerpt from Dell'Azione del Cuore Ne'vasi Sanguigni: Nuove Osservazioni About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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He was born at Scandiano in Modena on the 10th of January 1729.
He was at first educated by his father, who was an advocate. At the age of fifteen he was sent to the Jesuit college at Reggio di Modena, and was pressed to enter that body. He went, however, to the university of Bologna, where his famous kinswoman, Laura Bassi, was professor of physics, and it is to her influence that his scientific impulse has been usually attributed. With her he studied natural philosophy and mathematics, and gave also great attention to languages, both ancient and modern, but soon abandoned the study of law, and afterwards took orders.
His reputation soon widened, and in 1754 he became professor of logic, metaphysics and Greek in the university of Reggio, and in 1760 was translated to Modena, where he continued to teach with great assiduity and success, but devoted his whole leisure to natural science. He declined many offers from other Italian universities and from St Petersburg until 1768, when he accepted the invitation of Maria Theresa to the chair of natural history in the university of Pavia, which was then being reorganized. He also became director of the museum, which he greatly enriched by the collections of his many journeys along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
In 1785 he was invited to Padua University, but to retain his services his sovereign doubled his salary and allowed him leave of absence for a visit to Turkey where he remained nearly a year and made many observations, among which may be noted those of a copper mine in Chalki and of an iron mine at Principi. His return home was almost a triumphal progress: at Vienna he was cordially received by Joseph II and on reaching Pavia he was met with acclamations outside the city gates by the students of the university. During the following year his students exceeded five hundred. While he was travelling in the Balkans and to Constantinople, His integrity in the management of the museum was called in question (he was accused of the theft of specimens from the University's collection to add to his own cabinet of curiosities), with letters written across Europe to damage Spallanzani's reputation. A judicial investigation speedily cleared his honour to the satisfaction of some of his accusers. But Spallanzani got his revenge on his principal accuser, a jealous colleague, by planting a fake specimen of a composite "species". When his colleague published the remarkable specimen Spallanzani revealed the joke, resulting in wide ridicule and humiliation.
In 1788 he visited Vesuvius and the volcanoes of the Lipari Islands and Sicily, and embodied the results of his researches in a large work (Viaggi alle due Sicilie ed in alcune parti dell'Appennino), published four years later.
(Excerpt from Mémoires sur la Respiration J'avais promis'...)
(Excerpt from Dell'Azione del Cuore Ne'vasi Sanguigni: Nuo...)
In June 1768 Spallanzani was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1775 was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.