Carlo Marangoni, 1909
At Pavia, where he was born in 1840, Carlo Marangoni followed all his course of studies until to the University Degree in Physics, which he obtained after defending a thesis on the phenomena occurring in liquids due to surface tension, under the advice of Professor G. Cantoni (1).
In 1868 Marangoni moved to Florence at the "Specola", a section of the "Istituto di Studi Superiori" (2). Here, he focused his attention in meteorological researches. In this field, a very short note (considered of particular mentioning interest) was published in "Nuovo Cimento, in the year 1868 at page 318, titled "The thermometer of Mr. Marchi, with maximum and minimum values". Later on, Marangoni equipped the Laboratory of Physics of the "Liceo" with this kind of instrument, which he judged especially accurate.
As also concerns Acoustics, a typical science of the Nineteenth Century, Marangoni always showed particular attention and love. The rich collection of acoustic instruments, present in the High School, testimonies the above-mentioned love. Moreover, he published an article (3) of physiologic acoustics, in collaboration with Emilio Villari, executed in the Laboratory of Physics of the "Istituto Tecnico" of Firenze.
In 1869 Marangoni started his teaching activity at the "Liceo Classico Dante" (4) and, at the same time, he conducted a scientific activity, as documented by numerous and important articles on "Nuovo Cimento" (5,6) and on "Rendiconti dell'Accademia dei Lincei".
In Ref.5, Carlo Marangoni and Pietro Stefanelli, teachers at the "Regio Liceo Classico Dante", and at "Scuola Tecnica Dante" in Firenze, respectively, wrote that they used a good "Sine Galvanometer", furnishing the Laboratory. This galvanometer, showing a label "made by Officina Galileo", is up to now in a good functioning state and it represents one among the earliest products of the Officina Galileo.
In Ref.6, the fore-mentioned Authors describe the transport phenomena occurring in liquids, due to surface tension gradients.
During his active life, Carlo Maragoni also devoted his time to the preparation of laboratory experiments, to devising new instruments and to the careful and up-dated discussion of the principal developments of the scientific research at the end of the Nineteenth Century, as documented by his collaboration with the journal "Rivista Scientifico-Industriale" edited by Mr. Vimercati.
The continuous work of Marangoni, during more than 40 years, is reflected by the instrumentation of the Laboratory of Physics, which attained a high qualitative and quantitative level under his direction. Such an important achievement was due, in addition to the prestigious quality of Marangoni as a teacher and as a scientist, also to the diffuse bidding of the contemporary governments for remedying the large scientific lag of the Country. Actually, during the second part of the Nineteenth Century, a great part of the scientific research was conducted in the laboratories of the high school institutes. Moreover, numerous teachers had available comparable (if not better) laboratories in respect to university laboratories and performed an appreciable and, as much as possible, advanced experimental activity.
Note
The present short biography of Marangoni is available on the Web-site of the "Liceo Classico Dante".The text has been edited and translated into English by Giuseppe Loglio, (Department of Organic Chemistry, University of Florence, Via della Lastruccia 13, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy).
Fig. 1 is cropped out from the image of a group of professors and students, celebrating the final High School Degree, in the year 1909. The original photograph belongs to a private collection (Dr. Valleri). A photographic reproduction of the original photograph is deposited in the archive of "Liceo Classico Dante" (by a courtesy of the Rector of the High School and of Prof. Maria Teresa Aristodemo Renzi).
References
- G. Cantoni (1818-1897), was the successor of Giuseppe Belli on the Chair of Physics of the University of Pavia, which formerly was the Chair of Alessandro Volta.
- The "Istituto di Studi Superiori" changed its name into "Universita' degli Studi di Firenze" at the beginning of the Twentieth Century.
- "Ricerche sul limite della percezione dei suoni in riguardo alla loro durata"; del prof. Emilio Villari e del dottor C. Marangoni; Nuovo Cimento serie 2, vol I, pp. 382-397, 1869.
- Liceo Classico Dante is still operative in the original building, Via Francesco Puccinotti n. 55, 50129 Firenze (Italy), Tel.: +39-055-490268, Web-site: http://www.liceoclassicodante.fi.it.
- "Sulle proprietà che hanno vari liquidi di impedire o far cessare talune reazioni tra acidi e metalli"; ricerche sperimentali dei professori C.Marangoni e P.Stefanalli, Nuovo Cimento, serie 2, vol. IV , pp.373-389, 1871.
- "Monografia sulle bolle liquide"; dei professori C.Marangoni e P.Stefanelli, insegnanti nel R. liceo e nella scuola Tecnica Dante di Firenze, Nuovo Cimento, serie 2, vol. VII-VIII, pp. 301-356, 1872; serie 2, vol. IX pp.236-256, 1873.