The Scientific Correspondence of Arcangelo Scacchi

Vol52,6,2009New 2-12-2009 12:39 Pagina 605 ANNALS OF GEOPHYSICS, VOL. 52, N. 6, December 2009 The scientific correspondence of Arcangelo Scacchi Rossella De Ceglie Seminario di Storia della Scienza, Università degli studi di Bari, Italy Abstract The scientist Arcangelo Scacchi (1810-1893), is today rarely mentioned in histories of Italian science in the nineteenth century. Even a brief consideration of his career, however, reveals that his work was of great impor- tance to the scientific community of his age. For more than fifty years he was Professor of Mineralogy at the University of Naples and Curator of the Royal Mineralogical Museum, which under his guidance enjoyed a period of unprecedented success. The as yet unpublished Scacchi papers shed interesting light on the world of this Italian naturalist. His correspondence reveals much about Scacchi’s role in the scientific community both in Italy and abroad, and illustrate the extent to which he was involved in contemporary debates and research in the fields of geology, mineralogy, volcanology and crystallography. Key words geology – mineralogy – volcanology – eralogical Museum, which, under his guidance correspondence – uniformitarianism enjoyed a period of unparalleled success. Scac- chi, the «brilliant crystallographer», was «the Vienne, le 7.3.90 first Italian mineralogist to win international «Mon cher Maître! Acceptez, je vous prie, mes ren- 3 seignements sincères pour le nouvel envoi de mé- recognition for his work», ( ) and to achieve the moires que je viens de recevoir et qui m’apprend, que honour of having a mineral – scacchite – named votre activité est encore tout à fait celle de la je- after him. Scacchi began by studying Vesuvius unesse, dirigée toutefois par l’expérience et la and the geology of the Campania region but, sagacité que nous admirons tout à vous, mon cher from the beginning of the 1830s, broadened his maître». E. Suess (fig. 1). research into the fields of palaeontology, geology, chemistry and mineralogy. It was with these words that, in March 1890, Although today his name is seldom men- the famous Austrian geologist Edward Suess (1) tioned in histories of Italian science in the nine- addressed Arcangelo Scacchi (1810-1893), teenth century (4), even a brief look at his life and who was then in his eighties and had been career illustrates how eminent a figure he was in teaching Mineralogy at the University of the scientific community of his day. Scacchi’s Naples for over fifty years, during which time vast correspondence reveals how he occupied a he had also been Dean (2). Amongst his other position right at the centre of a network of con- roles, he was also the Curator of the Royal Min- tacts made up of some of the most important Ital- ian and international scientists of the age. The South of Italy was full of places of interest – Naples and Vesuvius, Sicily and Etna – for naturalists, who flocked there on field trips. Scacchi was a point of reference for the visiting Mailing address: Dr. Rossella De Ceglie, Seminario di scientists and he frequently accompanied them Storia della Scienza, Università degli Studi di Bari, Palazzo Ateneo, P.zza Umberto I, Bari, Italy; e-mail: deceglie@filo- on their expeditions. An extraordinary rapport sofia.uniba.it seems to have developed between northern sci- 605 Vol52,6,2009New 2-12-2009 12:39 Pagina 606 R. De Ceglie ous Italian and foreign scholars cover a long period of time, from approximately 1830 until the death of the naturalist in 1893; they reveal how Scacchi was at the centre of an international network of scholars and underline how highly he was regarded by the leading academics of the day, who saw him as a valuable point of reference for their own research. The letters also reflect the diversity of Scacchi’s interests which ranged freely across disciplines as varied as zo- ology, palaeontology, chemistry, geology, volcanology, mineralogy and crystallography. The letters dating from the 1830s confirm that initially Scacchi’s main focus was on zool- ogy, which would subsequently become of sec- ondary interest to him, as he devoted an in- creasing amount of time and energy to geology and mineralogy. It is also evident from the correspondence in this early period of his career that he was already well-known both in Italy and abroad (7). Foreign scholars at leading research centres were interested in Scacchi’s work and followed his career closely, asking him for materials and specimens as well as for Fig. 1. Letters from Edward Suess to Scacchi, Vien- 8 na, 7 March 1890, Biblioteca Fondazione Pomarici his scientific opinions ( ). A case in point is that 9 Santomasi, Gravina in Puglia (Bari, Italia), Cart. of the French ichthyologist Valenciennes ( ) Scacchi, B4, F 11, N 131. from the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, who was interested in Scacchi’s malacological studies and in the clavagella specimens sent to Scacchi by Brongniart (10). In Belgium too, entists, who came down to Naples and the sur- Scacchi’s work on shells was well-known and rounding countryside on geological and vol- his fame as a mineralogist was beginning to canological field trips, and leading local schol- spread; as early as 1839, Andrè Hubert Dumont ars: besides Scacchi, other noteworthy academ- (11), a geologist at Lieges University, expressed ics included Oronzio Gabriele Costa and the interest in exchanging mineral specimens with Gemmellaro brothers (5). The area became a his Italian colleague (12). kind of «promised land» where geologists from Scacchi’s fame – as well as his collections – all over Europe could meet established col- grew over the following ten years as he expand- leagues. ed his research. Again, his correspondence Scacchi’s letters, most of which are in the shows the extent of his involvement with some keeping of the Pomarici Santomasi Foundation of the most important national and internation- in Gravina in Puglia, his birth place (6), provide al scholars of the day, and with prestigious re- important clues on the environment in which search centres. the naturalist grew up and worked. They also il- Scacchi’s correspondence with his fellow lustrate the key role Scacchi played in the sci- Italian, Filippo Corridi (13), offers evidence of the entific community both in Italy and abroad in size and quality of the collection he assembled the nineteenth century, and in research in the (14), as do letters written by the geologist Giovan- fields of geology, mineralogy, volcanology and ni Capellini (15): Capellini provided the geologi- crystallography. cal museum in Bologna with mineral samples The many letters written to Scacchi by vari- from Vesuvius that he had been given by Scac- 606 Vol52,6,2009New 2-12-2009 12:39 Pagina 607 The scientific correspondence of Arcangelo Scacchi chi, whose work in the scientific field he consid- Scacchi actually visited him personally in ered to be without equal (16). Exchanges of books Naples whilst in Italy on research trips. On and minerals also took place between Scacchi these occasions Scacchi – often together with and Angelo Sismonda (17), the Director of the his colleague Luigi Palmieri (33) and his student Mineralogical and Geological museum in Turin. Guglielmo Guiscardi (34) – usually accompa- Scacchi enjoyed contact with numerous sci- nied the scientists on their expeditions around entists from abroad. In September 1847, the the region. One such visitor was the Scottish chemist Friedrich Wöhler (18) visited Naples geologist, Charles Lyell (35) who, after a first, and, along with Scacchi and Piria (19), went on crucial trip to Italy in 1828, returned in 1858 an excursion to Vesuvius, while in the autumn of and visited Monte Nuovo, Vesuvius and Pom- 1850 Scacchi accompanied three scientists from pei with Scacchi. The correspondence reveals Berlin, Eilhard Mitscherlich (20), Gustav Rose how the two scientists worked together. (21) and Justus Roth (22), to Solfatara, Monte It is well-known that Lyell is regarded as an Nuovo and Vesuvius. After the visit Scacchi important figure in the history of geological wrote to Mitscherlich, thanking him for «ex- studies on account of his revolutionary views tremely pleasant and instructive conversations» (36) about how events from the past can be ex- (23), a sentiment no doubt shared by the German plained in terms of phenomena present today, scholars too, as Rose and Mitscherlich both re- and his rejection of theories of unknown or cat- called their stay in Naples with their friend aclysmic causes. Lyell’s work would in fact Scacchi «with the greatest pleasure» (24). The help to demolish catastrophe theories. He intro- high esteem they held him in led to an enduring duced into geology the concepts of unlimited friendship, and to their receiving mineral sam- time and natural forces, and the theory that the ples and papers from him. According to Rose, physical and geological phenomena at work to- Scacchi’s work on humite (25) was remarkable day function with the same intensity as in the (26). Rose himself checked Roth’s German trans- past. The Earth’s past could be explained by lation of Scacchi’s work and proof-read the final making reference to present phenomena, such text and illustrations, which were published in as the movement of the earth’s crust due to vol- Poggendorff’s Annalen der Physik in 1853 (27). canic activity, earthquakes or erosion due to Scacchi was in contact with various German wind or rain. The development of Lyell’s new scientists, such as the mineralologist Paul Groth point of view was significantly affected by his (28), who included Scacchi’s name in the list of direct study of the Tertiary and volcanoes while contributors to his journal of crystallography on his visit to Italy in 1828 (37).

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