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Antinori Orazio (28.10.1811 - 26.08.1882)
He was born in Perugia, where he was educated at a Benedictine monastery, and then he studied mainly natural sciences at the university of his native city and in Rome. In 1835, he finally settled in Rome, where he helped Charles Lucien Bonaparte put his zoological collections in order and prepared drawings for his work “The Iconography of the Italian Fauna”. Around 1845, Antinori fully devoted himself to the political movement aimed at achieving national independence, first as a journalist, and in 1848 he volunteered for the ranks of the Roman insurgents, participated in the battle with the Neapolitans at Velletri, was promoted to captain and was among the defenders of Rome against the French. When Rome was taken on July 3, 1849, Antinori retired to Athens, then to Smyrna, and from there he made scientific excursions to study the ornithology of these localities. In 1854, he accompanied Princess Belgioizo to Syria and, first going to Smyrna, then traveled to Asia Minor in all directions. In 1859, Antinori went to Egypt and from 1860 to 1861 traveled along with Carlo Piaggia to the country located along the upper reaches of the Nile, and there he met with Alexandrina Tinne and Theodore von Heiglin. Returning to Italy, Antinori sold his very valuable ornithological collections to the Turin Museum, compiled a catalog for them, which was published in Milan in 1864, and in 1867 was one of the founders of the Italian Geographical Society; in his Bulletins, he described his journey through Nubia. In 1869, Antinori, among other representatives of Italy, was present at the ceremonial opening of the Suez Canal, and after that took a trip to the land of the gods, lying north of Ethiopia. Antinori also reported on this trip in the “Bulletins”, and the zoological collections exported from there were handed over to the Italian museum and zoological garden in Florence. Upon returning to Italy, he was promoted to secretary of the Italian Geographical Society. In 1875, Antinori went to Tunis to study salt lakes. In 1876 he left Naples at the head of the Italian expedition to Central Africa. Overcoming great obstacles, the expedition passed along the shores of the Gulf of Aden to the country of Shoah (south of Ethiopia). He died at the Italian geographical station Lit-Marefiya in Shoah. Cape on the west coast of the Sturfjord, the extreme eastern point of the Negri Glacier. |
