Luigi Bellardi

Background

Luigi Bellardi was born on May 18, 1818, in Genoa, Italy. Although a native of Genoa, Bellardi spent most of his life in Turin.

Education

Following the wishes of his family, Bellardi studied law.

Career

At the age of twenty, Bellardi published his first paper on the gastropod genus Borsonia, and from that time on, his major scientific activity concentrated on the Cenozoic Mollusca of Piedmont and of Liguria. He also visited the Middle East, particularly Egypt, bringing back extensive collections for comparative study.

Between 1854 and 1874 a variety of circumstances prevented Bellardi from dedicating himself entirely to paleontology, and he, therefore, undertook entomological research, mostly on the diptera of Piedmont. He also took some interest in botany and agriculture, being the first in Italy to discuss the phylloxera and its relationship to viticulture.

He taught natural history for thirty years at the Liceo Gioberti and was the curator of the paleontological collection of the Royal Geological Museum of Turin, to which he made many contributions. His desire to increase interest in natural history led him to write several elementary textbooks, also characterized by clarity of expression and precision of data.

During the last twenty years of his life, he returned entirely to paleontology, but never completed his extensive and important I molluschi dei terreni terziari del Piemonte della Liguria, which is characterized by perfectionism in presentation and content.

Achievements

• Luigi Bellardi's chief achievement is in his published work titled, I molluschi dei terreni terziari del Piemonte della Liguria (1872), a work on mollusks of the Middle and Early Tertiary in the Mediterranean basin. He also published in 1888 the five more parts dealing with Cephalopoda, Pteropoda, and the first families of Gastropoda.
  
  Bellardi was elected an honorary member of many academies and scientific societies, and King Victor Emmanuel requested him to teach the natural sciences to his sons, an assignment that Bellardi particularly enjoyed.

Works

More photos

• book

  • I Molluschi dei terreni terziarii del Piemonte e della 1872
  • Saggio Di Ditterologia Messicana 1859
  • Monografia Delle Pleurotome Fossili Del Piemonte 1847
  • Monografia Delle Columbelle Fossili Del Piemonte 1848
  • Catalogo ragionato dei fossili nummulitici d'Egitto nel Museo di mineralogia di Torino. 1854
  • Description des Cancellaires fossiles des terrains tertiaires du Piémont 1841
  • Monografia delle mitre fossili del Piemonte 1850

Views

Since his early youth, the natural sciences had attracted Bellardi; and in his leisure time, he collected the Cenozoic Mollusca abundant in the hills around Turin, Superga, Asti, and Tortona. Upon the introduction of evolutionary ideas into paleontology, Bellardi immediately understood their fundamental importance, and his last works show the relationships between the different forms of Mollusca, and their probable filiation through geological time.

Connections

associate:

Federico Sacco

In 1889 his student Professor Federico Sacco took over this work and published 25 more sections partly based on Bellardi’s work on this species-rich fossil group.

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  1870