Claude Ruggieri (1777 – 30 August 1841) was a

pyrotechnician Pyrotechnicians are people who are responsible for the safe storage, handling, and functioning of pyrotechnics and pyrotechnic devices. Although the term is generally used in reference to individuals who operate pyrotechnics in the entertainment ...

Paris, France Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

, who developed and wrote about innovations in fireworks design. He and others in his family were renowned and patronized by royalty for their creation of great fireworks extravaganzas. They also opened a public pleasure garden where fireworks displays could be enjoyed by the people of Paris. The Ruggieris introduced a style of fireworks that was theatrical rather than being based on military gunnery. Following a disastrous fireworks accident on 30 May 1770, the Ruggieris fell from favor. Claude-Fortuné Ruggieri was primarily responsible for restoring the family to its position of prominence. He used the new science of chemistry to develop novel fireworks, in particular colored fireworks that distinguished the Ruggieris from their rivals. He discovered a way to reliably create a vivid "green fire" observed in Russian fireworks. In his writings, Claude Ruggieri discussed "aerial philosophy", the composition and reactions of gases or "airs". He emphasized the importance of chemistry as a form of theoretical knowledge and connected it to the

artisan An artisan (from french: artisan, it, artigiano) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art ...

al practices of pyrotechnics. Claude Ruggieri was a friend of

André-Jacques Garnerin André-Jacques Garnerin (31 January 176918 August 1823) was a French balloonist and the inventor of the frameless parachute. He was appointed Official Aeronaut of France. Biography Garnerin was born in Paris. He was captured by British tr ...

, the Official Aeronaut of France, and experimented with both balloons and

rockets A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

. Ruggieri is credited with being the first person to use rockets to transport living passengers aloft. His passengers were mostly mice and rats, but also sheep. He used

parachutes A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who ...

to return them safely to the earth.

Family

Claude-Eugène-Fortuné Ruggieri was born in 1777, to Petronio and Jeanne-Elizabeth Ruggieri. The Ruggieris were an Italian family who had become naturalized citizens of France. The five Ruggieri brothers (Antonio, Francesco, Gaetano, Petronio and Pietro) left

Bologna, Italy Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...

, for

, in 1743. They came from a tradition in which fireworks were used as part of theatre, and accompanied the Comédie Italienne to Paris. Their ''spectacles pyriques'', fireworks mounted on fixed and moving iron armatures, were set off between acts of the theatrical performance. Soon the displays became entertainments in their own right, carefully crafted presentations that referenced

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

and

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narra ...

The Ruggieris were appointed ''artificiers du Roi'' to King Louis XV. The family thrived as fireworks pyrotechnicians under the patronage of royalty. Louis XV (1710–1774) patronized the elder Ruggieri brothers. Gaetano Ruggieri served

King George II of Great Britain , house = Hanover , religion = Protestant , father = George I of Great Britain , mother = Sophia Dorothea of Celle , birth_date = 30 October / 9 November 1683 , birth_place = Herrenhausen Palace,Cannon. or Leine ...

. Petronio Ruggieri (−1794) had two sons, Michel-Marie (−1849) and Claude-Fortuné. Michel-Marie and Claude-Fortuné designed and exploded elaborate fireworks displays for

Napoleon I Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

Louis XVIII Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (), was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. He spent twenty-three years in ...

, and

Charles X Charles X (born Charles Philippe, Count of Artois; 9 October 1757 – 6 November 1836) was King of France from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. An uncle of the uncrowned Louis XVII and younger brother to reigning kings Louis XVI and Lou ...

. In August 1764, Giovani Battista Torre (aka Jean-Baptiste Torré) established a pleasure garden on the boulevard Saint-Martin in Paris. It was known as the Waux-hall de Torré, or Waux-hall d'été, after

Vauxhall Gardens Vauxhall Gardens is a public park in Kennington in the London Borough of Lambeth, England, on the south bank of the River Thames. Originally known as New Spring Gardens, it is believed to have opened before the Restoration of 1660, being ...

in London. Torré held public fireworks displays that included artificial

volcanoes A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

. In 1766, Pietro Ruggieri became the "dignified rival" of Torre by opening his own Jardin Ruggieri at 20, rue Neuve-Saint-Lazare, catering to the Parisien public. After his death in 1778, ownership passed to his brother Petronio. It was taken over by Michel-Marie and Claude-Fortuné Ruggieri in 1794. In subsequent generations, Michel's son François Ruggieri (1796–1862) served as a pyrotechnician to

Mehemet Ali Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha, also known as Muhammad Ali of Egypt and the Sudan ( sq, Mehmet Ali Pasha, ar, محمد علي باشا, ; ota, محمد علی پاشا المسعود بن آغا; ; 4 March 1769 – 2 August 1849), was ...

, viceroy of

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

. Claude-Fortuné's son, Désiré-François Ruggieri (1818–1885) became the head of the family business in France, acting as a pyrotechnician for

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

. The Ruggieri family business is still in operation in France.

Work

Fireworks

On 30 May 1770, a display planned by Petronio Ruggieri to celebrate the marriage of the future

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

and Marie Antoinette ended in a disastrous accident. In response, the City of Paris slashed its budget for fireworks, cutting off the Ruggieri family's main source of income. Claude-Fortuné Ruggieri was primarily responsible for restoring the family to a position of prominence, by using the new science of chemistry to develop novel fireworks that distinguished the Ruggieris from their rivals. Ruggieri was a leader in prioritizing color as an important element of fireworks displays, and emphasized the importance of chemistry as a theoretical basis for creating colored fireworks: Before Ruggieri, the default color for fireworks was a brilliant "white fire", also known as "natural fire". Practitioners sometimes attempted to color their fireworks, generally by adding materials of the target color (e.g.

indigo Indigo is a deep color close to the color wheel blue (a primary color in the RGB color space), as well as to some variants of ultramarine, based on the ancient dye of the same name. The word "indigo" comes from the Latin word ''indicum'', m ...

for blue), achieving at best a faint coloration. The Ruggieris first attempted to develop colored fire in 1766 with the help of chemist

Antoine Lavoisier Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( , ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794),
CNRS (

There were reports that a brilliant "green fire" had been created in the 1700s, most successfully by Mikhail Vasil'evich Danilov and Matvei Martynov at the Russian court. However, other practitioners found it difficult to recreate such effects. In 1804, after hearing a first-person account of Russian green fire, Claude Ruggieri began to experiment with the addition of metallic salts to create colored flames. Ruggieri claimed to first use green fire publicly in June 1810, as part of a fireworks display for the marriage of

and Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma. Ruggieri wrote a number of works which were translated into English and German as well as being published in French. Ruggieri's first book, ''Elémens De Pyrotechnie'' (1801, 1811, 1821) was dedicated to

Jean-Antoine Chaptal Jean-Antoine Chaptal, comte de Chanteloup (5 June 1756 – 30 July 1832) was a French chemist, physician, agronomist, industrialist, statesman, educator and philanthropist. His multifaceted career unfolded during one of the most brilliant periods ...

, the author of ''Elémens De Chimie'', and a minister in Napoleon's government. In this way, Ruggieri aligned himself with a post-revolutionary view of science. Chaptal was a proponent of a "new man" who connected theoretical knowledge and artisanal skills. ''Elémens De Pyrotechnie'' was filled with discussions of chemistry and physics. Ruggieri discussed "aerial philosophy", drawing on some of

Joseph Priestley Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted exp ...

's ideas about the composition and reactions of gases or "airs". However, Ruggieri did not identify key differences between

Phlogiston theory The phlogiston theory is a superseded scientific theory that postulated the existence of a fire-like element called phlogiston () contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion. The name comes from the Ancient Greek (''burni ...

and Lavoisier's

Caloric theory The caloric theory is an obsolete scientific theory that heat consists of a self-repellent fluid called caloric that flows from hotter bodies to colder bodies. Caloric was also thought of as a weightless gas that could pass in and out of pores i ...

combustion Combustion, or burning, is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combus ...

. At the same time, the book is filled with practical descriptions and detailed diagrams about the construction and use of fireworks. Writing in 1922, Alan Brock describes Ruggieri as "the first author to deal with the subject in such a way as to convince the professional reader of the practical knowledge of the subject." File:Ruggieri Elémens De Pyrotechnie 1811 Title Page b1071419 001 tif np193999d.tiff, ''Elémens De Pyrotechnie'', title page, 1811 File:Ruggieri Elémens De Pyrotechnie 1811 Plate 01 b1071419 002 tif g158bj006.tiff, Plate 1, Laboratory bench equipment File:Ruggieri Elémens De Pyrotechnie 1811 Plate 25 b1071419 026 tif 0g354f98q.tiff, Plate 25, Armatures for fireworks File:Ruggieri Elémens De Pyrotechnie 1811 Plate 26 b1071419 027 tif 2j62s563b.tiff, Plate 26, Palm tree of green fire

Balloons, rockets and parachutes

Claude Ruggieri was a friend of

, the Official Aeronaut of France, who held balloon ascensions in the Ruggieri's pleasure garden. In 1801, Garnerin and Ruggieri celebrated

Bastille Day Bastille Day is the common name given in English-speaking countries to the national day of France, which is celebrated on 14 July each year. In French, it is formally called the (; "French National Celebration"); legally it is known as (; "t ...

with a combined balloon ascension and fireworks display. In addition to experimenting with balloons, Claude Ruggieri used

to transport living passengers aloft and

to return them safely to the earth. As early as 1806, Ruggieri sent mice and rats up in rockets, recovering them through the use of parachutes. He also apparently sent a sheep about 600 feet up in the air, bringing it back down with parachutes. As a result, Ruggieri is credited with being the first person to use rockets to carry living creatures. In 1830, Ruggieri announced that he would use a large cluster of rockets to lift a larger animal, a

ram Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

, into the air. A young man (perhaps as young as 11) apparently offered to replace the ram as a passenger in the test. Plans were made for him to ascend from the

Champ de Mars The Champ de Mars (; en, Field of Mars) is a large public greenspace in Paris, France, located in the seventh ''arrondissement'', between the Eiffel Tower to the northwest and the École Militaire to the southeast. The park is named after t ...

. However, French authorities intervened and canceled the flight, apparently due to the volunteer's youth.

Death

Ruggieri died at number 88, Rue de Clichy, Paris, France, on 30 August 1841. His widow was Catherine Antoinette Lagrange, whom he had married in 1819.

Publications

* Editions appeared in 1801, 1811, and 1821. * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruggieri, Claude-Fortune 1777 births 1841 deaths Pyrotechnics Early rocketry Scientists from Paris 19th-century French chemists