Corti, Bonaventura

(b Scandiano, Modena, Italy, 26 February 1729; d. Reggio nell’ Emilia, Italy, 30 January 1813),

Physics, botany.

A native of the same town as Lazzaro Spallanzani, Corti showed an aptitude for scientific subjects even as a boy. He was sent to Reggio nell’ Emilia, where he completed his studies and became a priest.

There, at the age of twenty-five, Corti was appointed professor of metaphysics and geometry at the school he had attended. In 1768 Corti was appointed to the professorship of physics, and the next year he distinguished himself with a valuable publication, Institutiones physicae.

At the same time Corti was also rector of the school and of the parish church of SS. Nazario e Celso. In this sensitive office he demonstrated the valuable qualities of poise and shrewdness, thereby winning the esteem of Duchess Maria Teresa Cybo d’Este, who had established her residence there. She chose him as her spiritual adviser and counselor in temporal affairs. She rewarded him for his services with two excellent and extraordinarily valuable microscopes manufactured by Dollond, which enabled Corti to undertake fruitful research.

The Este government had little interest in scientific research or in Corti’s scientific achievements. He was appointed director of the Collegio dei Nobili in Modena. Corti headed the collegio for about twenty-one years, devoting himself to its reopening and operation. In 1804, at the age of seventy-five, he retired and then was appointed professor of botany and agriculture at the University of Modena.

At eighty Corti relinquished the professorship and retired to Reggio nell’ Emilia, where he remained until his death.

Fifteen of Corti’s published memoirs and ten unpublished ones, some of which are incomplete, survive. He wrote a two-volume treatise on physics, Institutiones physicae (1769), that predates the discoveries of Galvani and Volta. Considerable knowledge is displayed in this work. In 1774 Giuseppe Toaldo wrote of it: “In many courses in physics I have not found subjects that are more appropriate for the schools than in this [treatise], which is a collection made with excellent taste and with a wide selection of doctrines.

From the point of view of originality Corti’s Osservazioni microscopiche sulla Tremella e sulla circolazione del fluido in una pianta acquajuola (1774), issued in one volume and illustrated with beautiful copperplates, is important. Chapter 21 of part I deserves special mention. On the basis of microscopic findings Corti affirms “that Tremella are endowed with movements said to be spontaneous in animals and considered characteristic of animals. And here we have plants that by now are confused with true animals” (p. 66). Further on, he defines the protoplasmic movements: “A certain small dark spot passes from right to left, is lost, and reappears; this is that series of rather dark spots which elsewhere I have said is caused by the elliptical figure of the small rings” (p.68). This is a clear anticipation of later descriptions of the movements of the protoplasm in the cell.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. See Institutiones physicae 2 vols. (Modena, 1769); Osservazione microscopiche sulla Tremella e sulla circolazione del fluido in una pianta acquajuola (Lucca, 1774); Lettera al Signor Conte Agostino Paradisi, che riguarda il movimento della linfa in 38 piante fanerogame (Modena, 1775); Storia naturale di quegli insetti che rodono le piante del frumento (Modena, 1804); “Breve ricerca dei casi, ne’ quali il commercio, le ricchezze ed il lusso degli individui, invece di accrescere servono anzi a diminuire le forze e I’autorità di uno stato riguardo alle vicine nazioni,” in Notizie biografiche letterarie degli scrittori dello stato estense (Reggio, 1834), app. 1, p.345

II. Secondary Literature. On Corti or his work, see P. Bonizzi, Intorno alle opere scientifiche di Bonaventura Corti (Modena, 1883); Enciclopedia cattolica IV (1950), 666; E. Manzini, Memorie storiche dei Reggiani più illustri (Reggio nell’ Emilia, 1878), pp. 29–35; G. Montalenti, “Storia della biologia e della medicina,” in Storia delle scienze, III, pt. 1 (Turin, 1962), 368; and G. Venturi, Storia e teorie dell’otticaI (Bologna, 1814), and Storia di Scandiano (Modena, 1822).

Loris Premuda