Antonio Targioni-Tozzetti botanical manuscript

Antonio Targioni-Tozzetti was born on September 30, 1785 in Florence, Italy. He was the son of botanist Ottaviano Targioni-Tozzetti and his wife Vittoria Campana, and the grandson of botanist Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti.

Targioni-Tozzetti enrolled at the University of Pisa in 1804. After completing degrees in medicine and philosophy in 1807 he returned to Florence where he continued to study anatomy and medicine, eventually joining his father’s medical practice in 1811. In 1820 he began assisting his father’s directorial work at the Giardino dei Semplici which brought him into contact with many of the leading Italian botanists of the time.

Targioni-Tozzetti married Francesca “Fanny” Ronchivecchi in October 1821; the couple had three daughters. Fanny oversaw a literary salon at their home which became a gathering place for Florentine politicians, writers, and scientists.

In the following years Targioni-Tozzetti taught botany, materia medica, and chemistry at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. He assumed directorship of the Giardino dei Semplici after his father’s death in 1829 as well as management of the Museo Targioniano, a family archive and extensive collection of natural history objects which included the herbarium of botanist Pier Antonio Micheli. Declining health and personal reasons forced Targioni-Tozzetti to give up teaching in 1852. He became seriously ill in the fall of 1856 and died later that year on December 18.

Sources

University of Florence Natural History Museum. 2006. I Targioni Tozzetti fra ‘700 e ‘900. Florence (IT): [publisher unknown].

Tassi F. 1905. La Botanica nel Senese. Bull. Lab. Orto Bot. Reale Univ. Siena. 7:3-56.

Von Lindemann E. 1885. Dritter bericht üren den bestand meines herbariums. Bull. Soc. Nat. Moscou. 61(1):37-92.