Pietro Arduino
Pietro Arduino | |
|---|---|
 Pietro Arduino | |
| Born | 28 July 1728 |
| Died | 13 April 1805 (aged 76) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Botany |
| Institutions | Orto botanico di Padova |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | Ard. |
Pietro Arduino (18 July 1728 – 13 April 1805) was an Italian botanist. The geologist Giovanni Arduino (1714–1795) was his brother, and the agriculturalist Luigi Arduino (1750–1833) was his son.
Biography
Pietro Arduino was born in 1728 in the small village of Caprino on the slopes of Monte Baldo outside Verona. Given their limited financial means, the family could only afford education for one son the eldest, Giovanni, who eventually became a respected geologist. To Pietro, however, these economic disadvantages were partially compensated for by the simple fact of having been born in the Monte Baldo area.
In fact, the area was famous for its flora and attracted many botanists keen to study the many interesting species of plants to be found there. One such visitor was the French antiquarian and botanist Jean-François Séguier whose arrival marked a turning point in the life of young Pietro Arduino. Séguier had originally come to Verona after repeated and insistent invitations from the scholar and historian Francesco Scipione Maffei and he had ended up staying in the city for a number of years. During this period he spent a lot of time studying the flora of the Verona region - which inevitably meant paying repeated visits to Monte Baldo. His guide on these excursions was the young Pietro Arduino, who was thus initiated into the world of botanical research. Séguier soon recognised the great potential of his young guide and saw that with adequate education Pietro could have been much more than a mere plant scout.
In 1750 he wrote a letter of presentation to the then prefetto of the Padua Botanical Garden, Giulio Pontedera, and convinced the young Arduino to pay the illustrious botanist a visit. Pontedera had the young man appointed as a gardener, and then in 1753 raised him to the post of Head Gardener. Though modest, Arduino's position in the Garden allowed him to do groundwork in botanical theory and practice, and thus paved the way for a career in the subject. At that time Pontedera was a botanist of European fame and the plants he gathered for the Garden during his long prefecture were important both in quantitative and qualitative terms. When Pontedera died, the Riformatori decided to appoint Arduino as acting prefetto while they decided on a successor.
Selected works
- Animadversionum botanicarum specimen (in Latin). Vol. 1. Padua: Giovanni Battista Conzatti. 1759.
- Animadversionum botanicarum specimen (in Latin). Vol. 2. Venice: Francesco Sansoni. 1764.
- Memorie di osservazioni e di sperienze sopra la cultura e gli usi di varie piante, 1766.
-
Animadversionum botanicarum specimen, 1759
Standard author abbreviation
The standard author abbreviation Ard. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[1]
Sources
Bibliography
- Fritz Encke; Günther Buchheim; Siegmund Seybold, eds. (1984). Zander Handwörterbuch der Pflanzennamen (13th ed.). Stuttgart: Ulmer Verlag. ISBN 3-8001-5042-5.
- Lusina, Giuseppe (1962). "ARDUINO, Pietro". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (in Italian). Vol. 4: Arconati–Bacaredda. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. OCLC 883370.
