Acta Botanica Croatica, Vol. 38 No. 1, 1979.
Other
Hundredth anniversary of death of botanist R. Visiani (Review of the symposium on his life and work)
Josip Balabanić
; Hrvatska
Abstract
The author reports briefly on the Symposium which commemorated the 100th anniversary of the death of Robert Visiani (Šibenik, October 5—8 1978). At some length he discusses his life and work. R. Visiani was born in Šibenik (1800) where he went to elementary school after which he attended secondary school in Split (1810—1817), and than completed the study of medicine and surgery in Padua (1817—1822). He
was assistent in the department of botany at the High school of Medicine (with Professor G. Bonato) until 1826 when he returned to his native country and practised medicine in Kotor, Drniš and Budva.
In 1835 he was offered the position of assistant professor in Padua. From 1836 until his retirement in 1873 he was professor of botany at.the University of Padua. At the same time he was director of the well-known Botanical Gardens which he restored. The Gardens served him above all for modern teaching and botanical experiments.
The second part of this article presents Visiani’s botanical research, emphasizing his floristic investigations, a result of which was his first book, Stirpium Dalmaticarum specimen (1826) recording more than 720 species of plants he had collected on his journeys in Dalmatia. He was the first to attempt a systematic, though incomplete, survey of Dalmatian flora. But that was only the precursor of his capital work Flora Dalmatica in three parts: I 1842, II 1847, III 1852. Visiani published two parts of Supplement: I (1872), and the first part of Supplement II (1877). His collaborator P. A. Saccardo finished the second part of Supplement II (1882). This work was soon used by Schlosser and Vuko- tinović, who compiled the relatively complete Flora Croatica (1869). Flora Dalmatica with more than 2,700 species recorded remains to this day one of main sources in the study of the flora of south-eastern Croatia. Visiani’s floristical work is also important for investigations of Serbian, Bosnian, Herzegovinian and Montenegrin flora. Visiani had a special understanding of taxonomic and floristic problems. This is proved by the fact that numerous plant endemics he had discovered are still retained and so are many new taxons he was the first to describe and name. He wrote some sixty botanical studies and articles.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
158356
URI
Publication date:
31.12.1979.
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