Roberto Salvadori: professore e merceologo
Nicoletta Nicolini
Università degli Studi La Sapienza, Roma
Tra i molti libri che possedeva mio padre there was one he cared very much. A small booklet titled Understanding the chemistry that had given Agostino Berti [1] whose dedication reads "dear friend, Luigi Nicolini, known during his military service." It is dated 1941 and is still full of notes with a small piece of dad's handwriting clearly committed to dominating matter. The book in question was Roberto Salvadori and it is not surprising that those who wished to study chemistry at that time he had owned a text. Salvadori was an interesting figure in the landscape because of its chemical approach to teaching scientific knowledge, an approach that placed the experience as the basis of the study of matter, privileging the historical method "as the most suited to attract the attention of young people." From here, the facts of nature, from the experimental facts, it came to ideas, inferences, and assumptions in a way that seems obvious today but it was hard to find so well formulated in the school curriculum 80 years ago [2].
The skill of teaching Salvadori was already recognized in his time, rather it speaks of "exceptional talent", found in particular in his first book, Elements of Chemistry, though a text for technical schools, was a "decided to renew methods of teaching chemistry and not only in school [3]. Released around 1910, the book is popular enough to have 15 editions in 30 years. Before this work Salvadori had already printed a text devoted to other educational experiences. Although this book seems rather unusual because the experiments did not have some importance for the educational publishing at the time [4]. But Salvadori, once appointed professor at the Technical Institute of Sassari, had been shown a particular attention to dissemination of chemistry with the publication of a brief summary Sassaresi Studies on laboratory experiences for the better understanding of the law of Lavosier. [5 ] The production of teaching some weight will end in 1926 con un trattato più strutturato in tre volumi che comprende anche delle generalità sulla merceologia.[6]
Ed è questa la seconda anima di Salvadori: oltre ad essere un bravo didatta era anche un merceologo, come già evidenziato dal prof. Giorgio Nebbia nel suo articolo su “Il costo energetico delle merci” apparso in Altronovecento[7]. Un merceologo attento che aveva introdotto il valore dell’energia nei parametri complessivi delle merci e un merceologo con una particolare sensibilità alle norme per il controllo dei prodotti specialmente di fronte alle frodi, tanto da sottolineare che “la necessità del controllo è diventata ormai una regola”[8]. Salvadori entrava nel dibattito dell’epoca the value and role of product category: what to teach, when to teach, for how long. The trade was the latest arrival in education, the last to emancipate themselves from the rules of thumb. It was a profession where you do not require extensive preparation. "Being a trader was like to be smart and right" and the young people who lack the ability or inclination to follow higher education studies, literary and scientific or technical data, were commenced to trade, "as it was felt that a win in this career position independent and prosperous, could be not only possible but easily without the aid of a large set of knowledge. "[9] Una volta stabilito il principio che anche una carriera commerciale dovesse avere una preparazione scientifica (e questo è il motivo dell’istituzione delle scuole superiori di commercio di fine Ottocento) e che la prima condizione per l’esercizio del commercio fosse la conoscenza perfetta delle merci, si trattava di definire quale indirizzo si dovesse dare all’insegnamento della chimica applicata al commercio ed i limiti entro i quali tale insegnamento dovesse essere tenuto. Purtroppo tutto ciò era confinato in poche ore di lezione che andranno via via ancora più scemando con la riforma delle facoltà di economia e commercio ove vi sarà la tendenza alla trasformazione in facoltà sul tipo americano della “Business Administration”.[10]
Ma tornando al dibattito dell’inizio del Novecento la merceologia, con la chimica annessa, secondo Salvadori non aveva raggiunto il suo vero significato. Per alcuni suoi colleghi era ridotta a pura tecnologia, per altri alla descrizione di proprietà, per altri ancora un problema di chimica analitica quando non un’arida descrizione di marche di prodotti in relazione ai prezzi, mentre il concetto di merce sarebbe dovuta scaturire da una sorgente di cultura più ampia. Questo era il nocciolo delle sue ambizioni. Obiettivo troppo elevato e generico? Può darsi, nel frattempo Salvadori, al corrente evidentemente delle situazioni scolastiche e consapevole che la mentalità dei ragazzi non fosse sufficientemente preparata alle comprensione of vocational subjects, would have been satisfied to teach students in those few hours of lessons how do you see the Dictionary of Villavecchia.
Who was Roberto Salvadori? Born in Mantua January 2, 1873, he graduated in Padua in 1896 with Raphael Nasini for three years and worked as his assistant until he won a scholarship to foreign countries, and exactly to Göttingen in the laboratory of Walter Nernst recently become commonplace in there. [11] In 1900 Salvadori is Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Technical Institute of Sassari and after two years, winning a competition and getting the free pass teaching at the Royal Technical Institute Galilei of Florence and occasionally teaches at the Royal School of Commerce , la futura Facoltà di Economia e Commercio.[12] A Firenze rimane fino al 1938, anno della sua pensione, ed a Firenze morirà il 1 gennaio del 1940 in seguito ad una violenta e rapida malattia.
Naturalmente i primi lavori di Salvadori riguardano studi che risentono dell’indirizzo di Nasini, quindi ricerche di chimica-fisica e analisi spettroscopiche su alcune emanazioni terrestri, ma Nasini è responsabile indiretto della futura passione di Salvadori per le attività sperimentali e merceologiche con l’affidamento dell’incarico di riordinare il corredo strumentale didattico. Nel laboratorio di Nernst invece lavora sul grado di dissociazione di alcuni acidi deboli. Pubblica con l’Accademia dei Lincei nel 1912[13] e, diventato socio dell’Accademia dei Georgofili, leggerà all’Accademia una comunicazione sulla genuinità dei vini di Firenze nel 1911.[14] Riesce a contemplare impegni serissimi ed impegnati, come la stesura del capitolo sulla ”Analisi chimica elettrolitica” nella Nuova Enciclopedia di Chimica del Guareschi[15], con interessi curiosi come le perizie del 1931.[16] Ma secondo la conclusione della commemorazione di Barini Banchi “la morte lo ha colto proprio mentre lavorava con entusiasmo sopra un importantissimo problema autarchico per la realizzazione del quale aveva avuto ultimamente l’alto consenso ed incoraggiamento del Duce”.[17] Non ho idea quale potesse essere l’importantissimo problema self-sufficient (it was also committed to the exploitation of oil shale from dell'ittiolo Trentino) but an article published in 1930 in the Journal of Industrial and Applied Chemistry, entitled "For the development of studies of the product sector in Italy" makes me think, and I'm happy because that is interested in a reorganization of existing museums merchandise along the lines of the Deutsches Museum in Monaco, then just opened. Salvadori had made a long trip abroad under the auspices of the Ministry of National Education. He had visited the Institute of Commodity Handelshochschule Mannheim [18] directed by Viktor Pöschl it detects the large space given to chemistry for those who had wanted to follow a degree in product category, the Colonial Museum in Amsterdam (now Tropenmuseum), the Historical Museum of Berne and the largest collection of drugs Tschirch Alexander, one of the largest Swiss pharmacologists at the turn of the nineteenth century [19]. But in his article an even greater emphasis is dedicated to the Deutsches Museum in Monaco which is literally thrilled. The Museum of Monaco, born from an idea by the electronic engineer Oskar von Miller in 1903 was opened in May 1925, "with actual laboratory experimental efficiency in daily educational background [20] and could be" call a comprehensive trade fair in perpetual development and improvement. " See Salvadori museums as instruments for creating general knowledge "of a people to the information available with every order of people in the purposes theoretical, practical, technological, economic and trade from a national perspective and international levels. It is no coincidence that the first name of the museum of Monaco, poignant example of his writing, was Meisterwerken Deutsches Museum von der Naturwissenschaft und Technik (German Museum for Masterpieces of Science and Technology) that highlighted the importance of science and technology the German people. Of course, it would require a considerable effort, the collection of Tschirch was prolonged for 40 years and the museum of Monaco had nearly 25 employees for its implementation, but starting from museums and collections already existing in Italy (Salvadori mentions the collection of Taxes of the chemical laboratory of Victor Villavecchia [21] in Rome, the High School of Commerce Massimo Tortelli [22] in Genoa, one of Ferruccio Cheat [23 ] in Venice, was Giulio Morpurgo [24] in Trieste, one School of Business in Florence) could have been taking the "victorious march under the impulse of the system." Assuming that this was also the intention of Salvador is not only the extensor of the commemoration, the expectations in the scheme will be severely frustrated. Until his death will not see any push toward high culture through the museums and you will wait to see the postwar period created the first (and only) national museum of science and technology in Milan at the same time, however, the dispersal of most of the collections mentioned merchandise.
[1] I was in Rome. He graduated in Bologna with a thesis on "artificial disintegration of elements" (see historical Bologna http://www.archiviostorico.unibo.it/template/listStudenti.asp?IDFolder=143&filtro=no&start=true&LN=IT&nEPP=200&offset = 5200.) and later became a professor at the Royal Institute of River Boat (from personal stamp on the book in question).
[2] R. Salvadori, Concepts of Chemistry, Florence, Felice Le Monnier, 1933, p. VII
[3] G. Barini Banchi, “commemorazioni”, in La Chimica e L’industria, 1940, n. 1. p. 41.
[4] R. Salvadori, Esperienze per un Corso di Chimica, raccolte dal Dott. Speroni, Firenze, F. Le Monnier, 1907.
[5] R. Salvadori, Sulla legge della conservazione del peso: esperienze di lezione, Sassari, Gallizzi, 1901.
[6] R. Salvadori, Trattato elementare di Chimica. Vol. I. I fondamenti, con un capitolo sui calcoli stechiometrici. Vol. II. Chimica inorganica e organica, Firenze, F. Le Monnier, 1925; Vol. III. Chimica applicata. Generalità sulla Industria e sulla merceologia. L'acqua, I combustibili, Gli apparecchi. Agricultural Chemistry. Building Materials, Florence, F. Le Monnier, 1926.
[7] G. Fog, "The energy cost of goods", in Altronovecento No 11, 2007. Send "commodity" by Roberto Salvadori and goods generally. I. Concept of commodity. II. Commodity concept of energy: lessons held in the year 1929-30, Florence, Poligrafica University, 1930.
[8] R. Salvadori, Elementary Treatise of Chemistry vol. III, Applied Chemistry, cit. p. 7.
[9] L. Gabba. "The address and the limits of chemical in aid for trade", read at its meeting on July 16, 1899, in Yearbook of the Chemical Society of Milan, 1899, p. 190.
[10] See W. Ciusa, "The teaching of the product category in the Faculty of Business and Economics," in Chemistry and Industry, 1957, No 8, p. 689.
[11] Walter Nernst, the future Nobel prize for chemistry in 1920, came to Göttingen from Leipzig in 1890 as an assistant to Eduard Rieck physical institute. Become a full professor in 1891 and full professor in 1894. In 1895 he founded the institute of physical chemistry and electrochemistry, which was inaugurated in 1896, where he served as director. Will remain at Gottingen until 1905 when it moved to the University of Berlin as a professor of chemistry, then physics, becoming director in 1926 in the new institute physicochemical then opened, and where he remained until his retirement took place in 1933.
[12] The Royal Decree of 28 November 1935 changed the Italian university system by establishing the Faculty of Economics and Commerce.
[13] R. Salvadori, "combinations of uranium with the hydrazine," Roma, Tip. R. Accademia dei Lincei, 1912.
[14] R. Salvadori, "Around some genuine wines of the province of Florence," is commonly understood to R. Georgofili Academy at the meeting of February 5, 1911, Firenze, Tip. M. Ricci, 1911.
[15] R. Salvadori, under "Electrolytic Chemical Analysis" in New Encyclopedia of Chemical Science, Technology and Industry, headed by Icilio Guareschi, vol. Torino II, Union Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 1913, p. 567-641.
[16] R. Salvadori, Five novel expertise: Poisoning by strychnine. The disaster of Holy Saturday 1909 to the outbreak of the wagon. Flour and bread only. Spontaneous combustion of Cenci. Sale of adulterated soap, Florence, F. Le Monnier, 1931.
[17] G. Barini Banks. cit.
[18] Mannheim had already founded a School of Commerce for the children of merchants already in 1778 by Grand Duke's name Academy of Commerce (Großherzogliche Handelsakademie), but will be closed in 1817. In 1907 he opened the Handelshochschule city \u200b\u200bthat will be closed in 1933 to be reopened in 1946 as a state employee Wirtschaftshochschule.
[19] Alexander Tschirch, born in Guben in 1856, he graduated in 1880 from the University of Berlin. After working in Freiburg arrives in Bern in 1890 as director of the new Institute of Pharmacy. Continue the collection of artifacts from the former professor of pharmacy began Friedrich August Flückiger adding 60,000 drug samples exposed in 37 cabinets in which there was also the origin of plants, ratings, photographs of the original environment and counterfeit products. The "Museum of drugs, as it was called, was attended by many domestic and foreign visitors until 1932, the year of retirement Tschirch, and the commencement of the decline of the collection. Tschirch died in Bern in 1939.
[20] R. Salvadori, "For the development of studies of the product sector in Italy", in Journal of Industrial Chemistry and Applied, year XII, 1930, p. 127.
[21] Villavecchia Gerolamo Vittorio (Alexandria, May 28, 1859 - Rome 29 May 1937).
[22] Massimo Tortelli (Bibbiena July 14, 1859 - Genoa, 12 August 1930).
[23] Cheat Ferruccio (Casteggio (Pavia) June 7, 1859 - January 13, 1947 Pavia).
[24] Giulio Morpurgo (Gorizia February 9, 1865 - Trieste, October 19, 1931).
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