Niccolò Gualtieri (9 July 1688 – 15 February 1744) was an Italian

doctor Doctor or The Doctor may refer to: Personal titles * Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree * A medical practitioner, including: ** Physician ** Surgeon ** Dentist ** Veterinary physician ** Optometrist *Other roles ** ...

and

malacologist Malacology is the branch of invertebrate zoology that deals with the study of the Mollusca (mollusks or molluscs), the second-largest phylum of animals in terms of described species after the arthropods. Mollusks include snails and slugs, clams, ...

. He established a private natural history collection, and catalogued its contents, the best known being of the molluscs. Gualtieri was born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

and moved to Pisa at the age of 20. Here he studied philosophy and medicine under Giuseppe Zambeccari (1665–1728). He returned to Florence to practice medicine, while also becoming personal physician to Grand Princess Violante di Baviera. He later became physician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He had a wide range of interests and contributed poetry apart from participating in learned societies, founding the Societa Botanica Florentina along with other associates. He wrote a pamphlet in 1725 suggesting that perennial springs were fed by sea waters through underground channels. He received enough criticism that the Princess Violante forbade him to write on the topic. In 1731 he began to assemble a private natural history museum, the holding of which he catalogued in 1742, as ''Index Testarum Conchyliorum, quae adservantur in Museo Nicolai Gualtieri'' (translation: ''List of the shells of shellfish which are preserved in the museum of Niccolò Gualtieri'') with copper plate engravings by Giuseppe Menabuoni and Antonio Pazzi. Gualtieri was a professor at the

University of Pisa The University of Pisa ( it, Università di Pisa, UniPi), officially founded in 1343, is one of the oldest universities in Europe. History The Origins The University of Pisa was officially founded in 1343, although various scholars place ...

. He was amongst the first to depict the

argonaut The Argonauts (; Ancient Greek: ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War (around 1300 BC) accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, ''Argo'', ...

. His collections were acquired by Stefano Lorena and are now deposited at the

Museo storia naturale di Pisa The Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa is a natural history museum in the city of Pisa in Tuscany, Italy. It houses one of the largest collection of cetaceans skeletons in Europe. The museum's oldest collections are seashells co ...

References

External links

GDZ
''Index Testarum Conchyliorum'' full text and plates.
Plates from ''Index Testarum Conchyliorum''
Italian malacologists 1688 births 1744 deaths 18th-century Italian physicians {{Italy-scientist-stub