Francesco Serao (20 September 1702 - 5 August 1783) was an Italian
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
, physicist, geologist, philosopher and scholar. He was born in
San Cipriano d'Aversa
San Cipriano d'Aversa () is an Italian commune and municipality in the Province of Caserta, region of Campania, located about northwest of Naples and about southwest of Caserta. The town is located on the territory of Agro aversano - a rural area ...
and died in
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
, Italy.
Biography
Thanks to his maternal uncle, Don Antonio Forno, Serao was taught by the
Jesuit
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, founders ...
s in Naples. He followed the thinking of
Descartes. At eighteen, he graduated in medicine and in 1727 he was awarded the
chair
A chair is a type of seat, typically designed for one person and consisting of one or more legs, a flat or slightly angled seat and a back-rest. They may be made of wood, metal, or synthetic materials, and may be padded or upholstered in vario ...
of theoretical medicine. In 1732 he was professor of anatomy, then of medicine.
He was a member of the Royal Academy or Academy of Sciences of Naples with his teacher Niccolò Cirillo and was a member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, of the London Academy, of the Benedictine University of Bologna and of other important scientific and literary groups in Europe.
He translated
John Pringle John Pringle may refer to:
*John Pringle, Lord Haining (c. 1674–1754), Scottish landowner, judge and politician, shire commissioner for Selkirk 1702–07, MP for Selkirkshire 1708–29, Lord of Session
*Sir John Pringle, 1st Baronet (1707–1782) ...
's medical works into Italian. Serao was chief physician of the
Kingdom of Naples
The Kingdom of Naples ( la, Regnum Neapolitanum; it, Regno di Napoli; nap, Regno 'e Napule), also known as the Kingdom of Sicily, was a state that ruled the part of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States between 1282 and 1816. It was ...
and physician to
King Ferdinand IV of Bourbon. Serao died in 1783 and was buried in the church of Monteverginella in Naples.
Works
*''Vita Nicolai Cirilli'', 1738
*''De suffocatis ad vitam revocandis'', 1775
*''Consilia medica''
*''Epistula ad Ioannonem Brunum sulla peste''
*''De Castrensibus morbis''
*''Istoria dell'incendio del Vesuvio accaduto nel mese di maggio 1737'', Naples, published by Novello de Bonis, also translated into French and English in 1738
*''Lezioni accademiche sulla tarantola'', 1742
*''Saggio di considerazioni anatomiche fatte su di un leone; Descrizione dell'elefante, Osservazioni sopra un fenomeno occorso nell'aprire un cinghiale'', Naples, published by Giuseppe De Bonis,
See also
*
University of Naples Federico II
The University of Naples Federico II ( it, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) is a public university in Naples, Italy. Founded in 1224, it is the oldest public non-sectarian university in the world, and is now organized into 26 depar ...
References
External links
''Vesuvius Erupts, 1738'' a summary of Serao's observations of
Mount Vesuvius
Mount Vesuvius ( ; it, Vesuvio ; nap, 'O Vesuvio , also or ; la, Vesuvius , also , or ) is a somma-stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of s ...
— ''Volcanoes, Basalt, and the Discovery of Geological Time'' An Exhibition of Rare Publications from the Collections of the Linda Hall Library
''Istoria dell'incendio del Vesuvio accaduto nel mese di maggio 1737''at archive.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Serao, Francesco
18th-century Italian physicians
18th-century Italian geologists
University of Bologna faculty
18th-century Italian physicists
18th-century Italian philosophers
1702 births
1783 deaths