Leopoldo Maggi

Leopoldo Maggi (Rancio Valcuvia, near Varese, May 15, 1840 – Pavia, March 7, 1905) was an Italian physician, craniologist and naturalist.

He completed his studies in the University of Pavia. In 1863 he obtained two degrees: in Natural sciences and in Medicine and surgery and became assistant first to Paolo Panceri (1833-1877) the teacher of several other outstanding Italian zoologists of the end of the 19th century and then to Giuseppe Balsamo Crivelli.In 1864 he was appointed lecturer in Mineralogy and Geology at Pavia, where from 1874 he held the professorship of Zoology and Comparative anatomy. When zoology became a separate subject in 1875 he held the chair of Comparatve anatomy and Physiology occupying this until his death.

For years he devoted himself to biology and especially to comparative anatomy, but also to Mineralogy, Osteology, Prehistoric archaeology, craniology and Protistology.

He was the first Italian to pay attention to Protozoa and his studies on Protozoa and Protistology are of considerable importance, although conditioned by the belief in spontaneous generation and Monera and by the adhesion to the doctrines of Ernst Haeckel. The Haeckel and Maggi theories declined at the beginning of 1900.

The studies of Leopoldo Maggi, at first eminently descriptive with the discovery of numerous taxa, had a rapid evolution in the medical field and converged in bacteriology. Also noteworthy are his research on the skull, conducted with comparative and evolutionary address. Many of his interpretations are nowadays outdated, but the descriptive part remains valid.