Edoardo Zavattari (21 October 1883,
Tortona – 17 February 1972)
(born 21 October 1883 in Tortona, in the province of Alexandria, in Piedmont and died on 17 February 1972 in Genoa) was an Italian
zoologist who was a director at the Institute of Zoology in the
Sapienza University of Rome from 1935 to 1953.
He supported
fascism and
anti-semitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
on the basis of his ideas from biology and was a signatory to the "
Manifesto della Razza".
Biography
His first academic role was as a professor at the
University of Pavia and then at the
University of Rome, Edoardo Zavattari was the author of more than 300 scientific publications. Between 1926 and 1959, he made several expeditions, visiting all the continents for research, in particular in the North-Eastern Africa. The specimens he collected, were placed into 122 packages, two of which are now part of the collection of the ''
Museo Civico di Zoologia'' in Rome. In particular, he published ''Prodromo della fauna della Libia'' (1934).
While he was director of the Institute of Zoology in the Capitoline Athenaeum from 1935 to 1958, the Institute's work on animal systematics was revived.
In the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century Zavattari was a supported of the regime of
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
and the
National Fascist Party and their theories on biological racism. In 1928, at the inauguration of the academic year at the University of Pavia, he pronounced himself for a strict separation between "superior race and dominated race". In 1938, he was one of the ten signatories of the Manifesto of racist scientists whose text, enriched by Guido Landra but conceived and modified by Mussolini, was presented as the founding act of the fascists' racial laws. Zavattari wrote several articles in the magazine ''La Difesa della Razza'', which was edited by the extreme anti-semite
Telesio Interlandi.
Zavattari was a member of the Italian Entomological Society (''Società Entomologica Italiana'') for more than thirty years (from 1937 to 1969) and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (''Accademia nazionale delle scienza'') from 1951.
Writings
* Zavattari, Edoardo (1940) Ambiente naturale e caratteri razziali. La Difesa della razza 3(9):49.
* Zavattari, Edoardo (1938) Politica ed etica razziale. Vita Universitaria. 3.
* Zavattari, Edoardo (1937) "Le basi biologiche di faschmo. Critica medico-sociale, no. 6:21-18.
References
External links
Museum of Zoology, Rome
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zavattari, Edoardo
1883 births
1972 deaths
20th-century Italian zoologists