The contribution of Giuseppe Raddi to Antonio Bertoloni’s collections at the Herbarium of the University of Bologna

ABSTRACT

The interest of Antonio Bertoloni in collecting plants was the focus of all his life and it was the driving force that led him to make of one of the most important herbarium collections in Italy: Hortus Siccus Florae Italicae. When in 1816, thanks to Gaetano Savi, Professor of Botany in Pisa and close friend of Giuseppe Raddi, he was appointed as full Professor of Botany at the University of Bologna, he devoted himself completely to teaching, researching, the care of the Botanic Garden and especially to the enterprise he was planning since he was a young student: the publication of the first Italian Flora, which gave him the fame he deserved. During the collection of the huge amount of data necessary to complete this great opera, he went on gathering plants for the Hortus Siccus Exoticus, a herbarium containing more than 10,000 specimens of plants from all over the world. Giuseppe Raddi was one of the main contributors, sending more than 200 plants in 20 years. Raddi must have held Bertoloni in high esteem, sending him newly discovered species in search of approval, and naming after him the genus Bertolonia (family Melastomataceae). The Herbarium of the University of Bologna is carrying out a complete survey of all the specimens sent by Raddi and the digitalisation of the results on the website http://botanica.sma.unibo.it/raddi.

KEYWORDS:

• Antonio Bertoloni
• Brazil
• Herbarium Bononiensis
• Giuseppe Raddi