Orazio Antinori

Itinerary edited by UNIVERSITY OF PERUGIA

BIOGRAPHY

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

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Biography

Orazio Antinori was born in Perugia on 23 October 1811, to Marquis Gaetano Antinori and Tommasa Bonaini Boldrini (Fig. 1). In 1828, he studied Natural Sciences at the College of the Benedictine Fathers at the Abbey of San Pietro in Perugia (Fig. 2). In 1837 he moved to Rome, the capital of the Papal States, to escape provincial life and seek better job opportunities. Between 1837 and 1841 he collaborated with Carlo Luciano Bonaparte (Paris 1803 - Paris 1857), Prince of Canino, in the writing and publication of the books “Iconografia della fauna italica” (Iconography of Italian Fauna) and  “Conspectus generum avium”  (Fig. 3). In 1848, he enlisted as an Officer in the Papal Army to fight against the Austrians in Northern Italy, and during the battle of Cornuda, in the Treviso Hills, he was shot in his right arm. Faithful to the liberal cause and Mazzini’s ideas, he returned to Rome and contributed to the flight of Pius IX. He also defended the "Roman Republic" against French troops.

The victory and entry of French troops into the city led to the fall of the Roman Republic and the dissolution of the military units. The inclusion of his name in the French proscriptions and the consequent fear of reprisals forced him to flee, his first time outside of Italy, and so began his long exile ... ..which only ended in 1861. The first part of his exile was spent in Greece, where he stayed in Athens for several months. After Greece he moved to the Ottoman Empire , first in Constantinople (Istanbul) and then in Smyrna (Izmir), where he worked with the Swiss consul Guido Gonzenbach, founder of an Export House for zoological specimens for European museums (Fig. 4 ). From Smyrna he travelled in search of zoological specimens, both inland, in the heart of Anatolia all the way to Syria, and towards the eastern Mediterranean islands (Samos, Rhodes, Crete, Cyprus) and Malta. On 9 May 1859, he moved to Egypt (Figs. 5, 6) and then to Sudan, in Khartoum, which he reached after a long and arduous journey across the Bayuda Desert (SahraBayyudah). In Khartoum he met many other European travellers and adventurers, some of whom were interested in the trade of natural gums and resins (frankincense, myrrh and gum arabic), ivory, ostrich feathers and coffee. He used Khartoum as his base for several years, traveling  to the distant and remote Darfur, Shinar and the borders  with Abyssinia (Gallabat, on the River Atbarah, and Ar Rusayris, on the Blue Nile). In 1860, again from Khartoum, he set off on his first Great Expedition  to the heart of the continent, going up the White Nile River to its confluence with the Bahr el Ghazal (River of Gazelles), together with Savoyard Alessandro Vayssière and Lucchese Carlo Piaggia (Badia di Cantignano LU 1827 - Karkoggi 1882).  The three men set sail on Vayssière’s boat with the intention of reaching the "Land of the Niam-Niam", a population that at the time was considered particularly "primitive" and "mysterious" (Fig. 7). Unfortunately, after reaching Nguri they were forced to give up their attempt due to unfavourable weather conditions. Nguri was the southernmost town and the closest  that Antinori had ever been to the equator. In 1861 he returned to Khartoum, where he learned that the Italian political situation had changed profoundly and that Rome and Umbria had become integral parts of the New Kingdom ruled by the House of Savoy, with King Vittorio Emanuele II on the throne! Therefore, after having scraped together enough money to make the long journey, he left Khartoum to return to Italy, ending his period of exile. He landed in Italy in 1861 and settled in Turin,  where he sold his precious Ornithological Collection to the State for 20,000 Liras  (... which was then divided up between various museums!). He donated his Ethnographic Collection to the University of Perugia’s Museum (Fig. 8). In 1863 he joined the Freemasons and in 1864 was elected a member of the "Grand Orient of Italy". In 1863, together with Ornithologist Tommaso Salvadori (Porto San Giorgio 1835 - Turin 1923), he went to Sardinia to carry out naturalistic observations and collect new zoological specimens for his collections. In 1866, for both naturalistic and archaeological reasons, he went to Tunisia. In 1867, once back in Italy, he moved to Florence, the new capital of the Kingdom of Italy and during the "Florentine period", together with Cristoforo Negri and Cesare Correnti, he founded the Italian Geographic Society, becoming its Director and carrying out the role of General Secretary. In 1869 he returned to Egypt, in the role of Official Representative of the Italian Government for the grandiose inauguration of the Opening of the Suez Canal (Fig. 9). On this occasion he made a few trips down the Nile, getting as far as Nubia. In 1870, together with the famous Florentine botanist Odoardo Beccari (Florence 1843- 1920) and Arturo Issel (Genoa 1842- 1922), he travelled from the shores of the Red Sea (Massawa) to the province of Bogos, where he remained on his own; he was later joined by Carlo Piaggia. In 1872 he returned to Italy, to Florence, to cover various roles on behalf of the Italian Geographic Society. In 1875 he returned to Tunisia to head a scientific mission in the region of Chotts and to explore the oases  in South-Central Tunisia (Fig. 10). Various distinguished people took part in this trip, including  the Perugian scholar Giuseppe Bellucci (Perugia 1844 – Perugia 1921). Back in Italy, in 1876 he was nominated to head the Great Expedition to the Equatorial Lakes by the Italian Geographic Society. After a public meeting and a farewell banquet in Rome on 7 March 1876,  he left for Naples, where at 8 pm the following day, at the age of 65, he embarked on the ship "Arabia" together with engineer Giovanni Chiarini and the organiser Lorenzo Landini, and set sail for Abyssinia (Fig. 11). The Group arrived at the port of Zeilah on 3 August 1876, where they were forced to stay for about a month and a half due to problems with local authorities. On 19 June 1876, the Expedition, with 70 camels and 125 cases, left Zeilah for Scioa (Shéwa). There were countless and unforeseen adventures and "mishaps" during  the expedition into the heart of the Abyssinian Highlands. In 1877,  King Menelik gave Antinori 95 acres for the establishment of a Geographic Station in LétMarefià, the first Italian "Centre for Naturalistic Studies" founded outside Italy (Fig. 12). At midnight on 26 August 1882, Orazio Antinori died at the LétMarefià station at the age of 71. Antinori's body was buried beneath an ancient Sycamore tree on the green LétMarefià plateau, where the mound with his remains still exists (Fig. 13). Naturalist-traveller, Patriot and freedom fighter for the Risorgimento, co-founder of the Italian Geographic Society, "father" of Italian explorers in Africa, founder of the first Italian “Scientific Studies Centre" outside Italy, collector of natural history specimens, taxidermist, donator of naturalist collections to numerous important Italian museums (Regional Museum of Natural Sciences in Turin, the University of Pavia’s Natural History Museum, the "Giacomo Doria" Natural History Museum in Genoa, the University of Florence’s Zoological Museum , the University of Florence’s  Tropical Herbarium Studies Centre, the University of Perugia’s Natural History Museum, the Zoological Museum  in Rome).

Antinori was one of the first European naturalists to carry out field studies on the environments, flora and fauna of the inner regions of the Horn of Africa. In recognition of his pioneering studies,  specific taxonomic terms for many examples of Northeast African fauna have been dedicated to him. Antinori’s cultural relations and his friendships with some of the best-known Italian naturalists-travellers and explorers of the time, such as Carlo Luciano Bonaparte, Giacomo Doria, Odoardo Beccari, Tommaso Salvadori, Arturo Issel, Luigi Maria D’Albertis, Carlo Piaggia, Antonio Cecchi, Giovanni Chiarini, Giuseppe Bellucci and many more, meant that these areas of interest were shared with these prominent figures, helping us to better understand the history and evolution of scientific thought and Italian naturalistic museology, as well as the history of Italian exploration on other continents and our country’s contribution to the "discovery" of the world's biodiversity.

Timeline

 1811 Born in Perugia
 1828 Began his studies at the College of the Benedictine Fathers at the Abbey of San Pietro in Perugia
 1837 Moved to Rome
 1837/1841 Collaborated with Luciano Bonaparte in the writing and publication of the books “Iconografia della fauna italica” (Iconography of Italian Fauna) and  “Conspectus generum avium”
 1848 Fought against the Austrians in Cornuda
 1849 Fought to defend the Roman Republic
 1849 With the fall of the Roman Republic, he fled into exile, first to Greece and then Constantinople
 1849/1859 He continued his exile in the Ottoman Empire
 1859 Moved to Cairo and crossed Egypt and the Sudan, going up the Nile to arrive in Bahr el Ghazal (River of Gazelles), together with Lucchese explorer Carlo Piaggia
 1861 His exile ended and he returned to Italy
 1863 Travelled to Sardinia with his ornithologist friend Tommaso Salvadori
 1866 Travelled to Tunisia where he visited archaeological sites and areas of naturalistic interest
 1867 Founded the Italian Geographic Society together with Cesare Correnti and Cristoforo Negri
 1869 Participated in the grandiose inauguration of the Opening of the Suez Canal as Official Representative of the Italian Government
 1870 Travelled to the province of Bogos (today Eritrea) with his botanist friend Odoardo Beccari
 1872 Returned to Italy
 1875 Returned to Tunisia for the second time
 1876 Left for the Great Expedition in the Kingdom of Shéwa, in Abyssinia
 1877 Founded the Italian Geographic Station in LétMarefià
 1877/1881 Made several exploratory trips in Shéwa, using LétMarefià as his base
 1882 Died in LétMarefià

Cities where he lived and worked

Perugia  Rome  Turin  Florence  Cagliari  Naples  Athens   Costantinople  Smyrna   Diyarbakir   Urfa  Damascus  Jerusalem 

Cairo  Luxor  Aswan  Khartoum  Kassala  Massawa  Cheren  Tunis  Sfax  Gabes  Port Said  Aden  Zeilah  Harrar  Ankober

BIOGRAPHY  RESEARCH ACTIVITIES  PUBLICATIONS AND FINDINGS  PLACES TO VISIT