Franco Andrea Bonelli - Life

Life

Very little is known about the early life of Bonelli: he was born in Cuneo and was interested from an early age in the fauna which surrounded him, making collecting trips, preparing specimens and noting his observations.

He became a member of the Reale Società Agraria di Torino in 1807 when he presented his first studies relating to the Coleoptera of Piedmont. The high quality of these studies attracted the interest of the naturalists of his time.

In April 1810, George Vat was sent to Turin by the French government to reorganize the University of Turin and begin its fusion with the Impériale University founded by Napoleon. Vat was very impressed by Bonelli’s knowledge. Vat encouraged him to further his knowledge by coming to follow courses at the Natural History Museum in Paris.

Bonelli took this advice so as obtain a professor’s chair in the new university. In September 1810, he arrived in Paris.

In 1811, Bonelli was finally named professor of zoology at the University of Turin and keeper of the natural history museum of zoology. During his time at the university, he formed one of the largest ornithological collections in Europe.

In 1811, Bonelli wrote a Catalogue of the Birds of Piedmont, in which he described 262 species. In 1815, he discovered the bird Bonelli's Warbler (Phylloscopus bonelli), named by Louis Vieillot in 1819. In the same year, he discovered Bonelli's Eagle (Hieraaetus fasciatus) that was likewise named by Vieillot in 1822.

The successor of Bonelli at the Turin Museum was Carlo Giuseppe Gené.

Read more about this topic:  Franco Andrea Bonelli

Famous quotes containing the word life:

    I feel the desire to be with you all the time. Oh, an occasional absence of a week or two is a good thing to give one the happiness of meeting again, but this living apart is in all ways bad. We have had our share of separate life during the four years of war. There is nothing in the small ambition of Congressional life, or in the gratified vanity which it sometimes affords, to compensate for separation from you. We must manage to live together hereafter. I can’t stand this, and will not.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    The girl must early be impressed with the idea that she is to be “a hand, not a mouth”; a worker, and not a drone, in the great hive of human activity. Like the boy, she must be taught to look forward to a life of self-dependence, and early prepare herself for some trade or profession.
    Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)

    What had really caused the women’s movement was the additional years of human life. At the turn of the century women’s life expectancy was forty-six; now it was nearly eighty. Our groping sense that we couldn’t live all those years in terms of motherhood alone was “the problem that had no name.” Realizing that it was not some freakish personal fault but our common problem as women had enabled us to take the first steps to change our lives.
    Betty Friedan (20th century)