NOTICE OF THE LIFE AND SCIENTIFIC LABORS OF STEFANO 



MARIANINI. 



By Carlo Matteucci, 

 President of the "Italian Society of Sciences, founded lij Anion Mario Lorgna." 



ITransIatcd for the Smithsonian Institution.'] 



It is not such a eulogy as is usually pronounced for the members 

 whom the Italian Society of the XL may have lost that I at present 

 undertake. This several reasons forbid, not the least of which is my 

 own uuskillfuluess in the polished style of composition which such labors 

 demand, joined to a conviction that the highest eulogy of those who 

 have consecrated their lives to science consists in the record of the 

 progress which it owes to their exertions, and the part reserved for them 

 in its history. I shall speak, therefore, with the utmost brevity of the 

 simple habits, the pure and unassuming spirit, the integrity of character, 

 and the great scientific activity of Marianini, although these qualities 

 constitute in themselves the best eulogy of the man, and shall dwell at 

 somewhat greater length on his principal labors in physics. 



Marianini was born at Mortara, a small town of Piedmont. He was 

 professor of physics at Venice, and more recently in the University of 

 Modena; he was a corresponding member of the Institute of France, 

 and president of the Italian Society of the XL for many years. 



The first work by which he attracted the attention of the learned w;is 

 an Essay on electro-metrical experiments * a work which I remember to 

 have heard spoken of, at the time, in terms of the highest praise by 

 Arago. It ai^peared at Venice in 1825. On account of the original ex- 

 l)eriments with which it is replete we need not hesitate to pronounce it 

 the most important production of the author. When it is considered 

 that in various chapters of this essay all ])arts of electro-dynamics and 

 of the pile are treated by methods and with instruments which were 

 then barely beginning to be known, wo need not be surjirised if the re- 

 sults at which Marianini arrived at that time have not remained in 

 science as he himself obtained them forty years ago. If we except the 

 discoveries of elementary laws and of physico-mathematical theories, • 

 this is the lot which befalls, after a certain number of years, even those 

 who have opened new fields in physics. 



]\Iariauini, in this essay, began by studying the relation between the 

 intensity of the current of a battery and'the extension of the elements 

 and tension of the electro-motors: that is to say, the number and nature 

 of the pairs which compose the pile. He then proceeded to experiment 

 on the relative electromotive power of conductors of the first class, ami 

 studied the phenomenon of tlie secondary current, respecting which he 

 has left us some valuable experiments. lii the third chapter of the essay 

 are comprised many original researches on the conductive capacity of 

 liquids for electricity. It is beyond doubt that this treatise marks a 

 great progress in our knowledge on the most obscure and difficult i)oints 



* Sa(j(fio di cspcricnze clcttro-metricha. 



