SPALLANZANI 



By BRUCE CUMMINGS 



British Museum (Natural History) 



Spallanzani 's dates (i 729-1 799) form the fons et origo of 

 many important departments of biological research. The 

 genius of Spallanzani touched and adorned so many things 

 that it is impossible to avoid coming constantly upon his 

 work. But the remarkable personality of the man behind the 

 name will possibly come as a surprise to English workers who, 

 if tempted for once in a way to make an incursion into the field 

 of biography, shall find their curiosity in this instance amply 

 justified. 



There is a large Italian literature about him. 1 Even in his 

 own country and among his own friends he always was and 

 still is regarded as a prophet and a great man, so that his 

 fellow-countrymen have not thought it superfluous to study 

 his life and character in the minutest details ; but in the small 

 compass of this article only the bald facts can be given. 



His personality is striking. The Abbe Spallanzani was a 

 priest and a savant, although in fact he possessed none of the 

 characteristics one is accustomed by convention to associate 

 with those two vocations. Greedy, ambitious, arrogant, and 

 at times violent, Spallanzani was a bull-moose type of man 

 who charged through life with his head down. There were 

 many obstacles to his success, but he brushed them aside ; he 

 had many detractors, but he pinned them down. To his 

 opponents in biological controversy he never expressed any 

 flabby desire to agree to differ. They were attacked with 

 acerbity, and whether right or wrong he emerged triumphant. 

 False modesty was not one of the Abbess faults. When, as a 

 young man conscious of his own genius, he ventured upon a 

 criticism of the illustrious Buffon, he did so with a sardonic 

 expression of his own incompetence. He never showed the 

 smallest inclination to mislead his contemporaries into giving 

 him less than his deserts. He set out to be second to none — 

 not even in salary — and he succeeded and was proud of it. 



1 See Lazzaro Spallanzani^ Pavia, 187 1 (Gibelli). 

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