Carlo Matteucci

Carlo Matteucci (1811-1868), Italian physicist, was born at Forli on the 10th of June 1811. After attending the Ecole Polytechnique at Paris, he became professor of physics successively at Bologna (1832), Ravenna (1837) and Pisa (1840). From 1847 he took an active part in politics, and in 1860 was chosen an Italian senator, at the same time becoming inspector-general of the Italian telegraph lines. Two years later he was minister of education. He died near Leghorn on the 25th of June 1868.

He was the author of four scientific treatises: Lezioni di fisica (2 vols., Pisa, 1841), Lezioni sui fenomeni fisicochimici dei corgi viventi (Pisa, 1844), Manuale di telegrafia elettrica (Pisa, 1850) and Cours special sur l'induction, le magnetisme de rotation, &c. (Paris, 1854). His numerous papers were published in the Annales de chimie et de physique (1829-1858); and most of them also appeared at the time in the Italian scientific journals. They relate almost entirely to electrical phenomena, such as the magnetic rotation of light, the action of gas batteries, the effects of torsion on magnetism, the polarization of electrodes, &c., sufficiently complete accounts of which are given in Wiedemann's Galvanismus. Nine memoirs, entitled "Electro-Physiological Researches," were published in the Philosophical Transactions, 1845-1860. See Bianchi's Carlo Matteucci e l'Italia del suo tempo (Rome, 1874).