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DONATI, Vitaliano.

(1717 – 1762)

(Born: Padova, Italy, 1717; Died: Mar Arabico, near Mangalore, 1762) Italian naturalist & traveler.

Concluded the studies of medicine and philosophy to Padova, was dedicated to the natural history and archaeology. To Rome, to the continuation of Giovanni Poleni, it received from Benedict XIV the assignment of reperire material profits to the preparation of a museum of natural history to the Wisdom. Donati to you was addressed towards the coast Dalmatian, experience that said its greater fruits in Of the marine natural history of Adriatic (1750). University professor of botany to Turin from 1750, died during a travel in East to the exemplary search assigns you to the realization of the city museum of antiquity orients them, first nucleus of the future Turinese Egizio Museum.

Biographical references: ABI: I 371, 87-113; II 213, 326. Benvenuti, Dizionario degli Italiani all'Estero, 1890. DBA: I 247, 352-356. Imperatori, Dizionario di Italiani all'Estero, 1956. Jöcher, Gelehrten-Lexikon, Supplement. Mieli, Gli Scienziati Italianì, 1921. Poggendorff: 1, col. 590. WBI. Wurzbach, Biographisches Lexikon Österreich, 1856-91.

Saggio, 1750

1. Italian, 1750 [First edition].
Della | Storia | Naturale Marina | Dell' Adriatico | Saggio | Del Signor Dottore | Vitaliano Donati | Giuntavi Una Lettera | Del Signor Dottore | ionardo Sesler | Intorno ad un nuovo Genere di Piante Terrstri. | [ornament] | In Venezia, | Appresso Francesco Storti. | [rule] | M. DCCL. | Con Licenza De' Superiori.

4°: π4 A-I4 K5; 45l.; [8], [I]-LXXXI, [1] p., 10 engraved plates (numbered I-X; in some states, all the plates are hand colored).

Contents: [2 pgs], Title page, verso blank.; [5 pgs], Dedication to Maupertuis, dated 4 March 1750.; [1 pg], "Indice."; I-LXXIX, Text.; LXXX-LXXXI, "Indice."; [1 pg], Blank.; [At end], 10 plates.

Rare. Edited by Count Giovanni Rinaldo Carli [??-??].Donati began a natural history expedition to the east but died en route. The observations he made before his death are contained in this work.

Facsimile reprint, 1999: C. Gibin — Il Saggio della storia marina dell'Adriatico: una ricerca pioneristica — Prefazione all'opera di V. Donati "Della storia naturale marina dell'Adriatico" — T & G Edizioni — Padova 1999.

In order to honor the dead it printed to Lucca in 1750 the Private disavventure of a woman of true spirit, but it had to destroy the edition for the participation of a doctor, ritenutosi defamed from some appreciations expressed in the work; endured after it was found implied in the famous controversy on the magic, that it followed to the publication of Of the nocturnal conference of the Tartarotti, in the which volume, in appendix, the Tartarotti had printed its epistle on the wizards and the witches, with a confutazione in which, between the other, it advanced the suspicion that the thesis of the Carli was from considering itself heretical. The Carli it allegated to have written to the Tartarotti not to publish the dissertation, but these it denied to never have received the letter. In the controversy, that it attests the spread caught up from the Italian rationalism, the Carli - than but it endured only some attack from Jesuits of Venice - much marginal part had, and was defended from the Maffei. The episode but admonished it to star far away from the radical positions which, of the rest, its nature did not tilt. It found comfort and svago, then, in some travels, between which one along the istriane coasts, where he studied the amphitheater Roman of Pola, having for companion the friend and Vitagliano naturalist Donate to you. These just account in the volume Of the marine natural history of the Adriatic collected the fruit of the completed searches in order, than the Carli it published to own expenses (Venice 1750).The Carli, become rich, it was discharged, in 1750, from the chair of Padova, than it did not answer to its real interests, and from the other engagements that it had in that city and it published, the year after, its first studies on the debated monetary issue, Of the origin and the commerce of the coins and the institution of the zecche of Italy (the Haya [ but Venice ] 1751).

Bibliographical references: Agassiz, Bibliographia Geologiæ, 1848-54: 2, 251. BL [456.b.10.]. BMC: 1, 472 [hand colored plates]. LKG: XIV 637. Nissen (ZBI): no. 1137. Pritzel, Thesaurus Literaturæ Botanicæ, 1871-3: no. 2370. Stafleu & Cowan, Taxonomic Literature, 1976-88: no. 1500.

2. French, 1758 [French transl.].
Essai | Sur | L'Histoire Naturelle | De | La Mer Adriatique | Par Le Docteur | Vitaliano Donati, | Avec Une Lettre Du Docteur | Leonard Sesler | Sur Une | Nouvelle Espèce | De | Plante Terrestre, | Traduit De L'Italien. | [ornament] | A La Haye, Chez Pierre De Hondt. | M. DCC. LVIII.

4°: π3 A-K4; 42l.; [6], 1-73, [5] p., 11 engraved plates (in some states, all the plates are hand-colored).

Contents: [2 pgs/=π1rv], Title page, verso "Avertissement."; [3 pgs/=π2r-π3r], Dedicatory letter.; [1 pg/= π3v], "Avis au Relieur."; 1-73 (=A-K2r), Text.; [5 pgs/=K2v-K4v], "Catalogue de Livres."; [At end], 11 plates.

Rare. French translation by by Giovanni Francesco Mauro Melchiorre Salvemini di Castiglione [??-??] of Della Storia Naturale Marine dell' Adriatico (Venezia, 1750) with corrections supplied by the author and Leonardo Sesler's [† 1785] letter on Vitaliana. "This edition counts for purposes of nomenclature" (Stafleu & Cowan).

Bibliographical references: BL [B.300.(5.)]. BMC: 1, 472. Pritzel, Thesaurus Literaturæ Botanicæ, 1871-3: no. 2370. Stafleu & Cowan, Taxonomic Literature, 1976-88: no. 1500.

3. German, 1753 [German transl.].
Auszug seiner Natur-Geschichte des Adriatischen Meers den Boden des Meers zu untersuchen, nebst Instrumenten in solcher Tiefe zu fischen, von Classen der Meerpflantzen, der Polyparen, der Thierpflantzen und Pflantzenthiere, oder Uebergang der Natur vom Pflantzenreiche zum Thierreiche ... Halle, Francken, 1753.

8°: 71, [1] p., [2] leaves of plates. Special half-title for Sesler's work. Includes bibliographical references and index. Rare.

Bibliographical references: BL [no copy listed]. Stafleu & Cowan, Taxonomic Literature, 1976-88: no. 1500.

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